Broken Guardians
by StrawberryYoogurt
Summary: She's just a normal earth girl. ATLEAST she was until she somehow ended up on Aernas, and that too in the middle of a crazy war! Now her life is thrown upside down as she meets the Grand Chase and learns that she actually might be of some importance to them.
1. Chapter 1: Pointing Trees

Prologue

"There's too many of them! We won't be able to keep them out much longer!"

"No! That's not an option! We have to save Bermesiah!"

Around them the fires of war consumed the land. The Infected were giving it everything they had to bring down the Wall of Bermesiah and take over. The knights looked at each other, all 17, sweaty and bloody. They were all teenagers yet when it came to protecting the continents there was no one better. Now was one of the few times they felt like children.

"We have to evacuate everyone."

"I believe Knight Master had already begun that long ago. She's sending everyone off on ships to Alcubra."

"Alcubra? The last safe continent…"  
Suddenly there was a loud wisping sound.

"What's that?!"  
"A CANNON! TAKE COVER!"  
The knights leaped as the cannonball smashed right into the wall beside them. It was no ordinary cannonball. From the way it looked they could easily tell dark magic was present all around it.

"We have to go!"

As the knights ran down the stairs of the wall, more cannons were fired. The Infected seemed to have very complex war machines.

"Let's get to the docks!"

Reaching the bottom the knights looks up at the wall. It was at its weakest now, with one third blown off the top and a huge gaping hole in the middle.

"They'll be coming through soon! Hurry!"

Sprinting through the docks the knights took in the scenery. Everything was burning. The houses, the trees. There was no one to be seen. They must have all made it to the docks by now.

Running as they were the knights couldn't help but feel responsible for the loss of Bermesiah. So many people had called it home and now it had just slipped between their fingers.

Upon reaching the docks the knights witnessed Knight Master ushering the last group if civilians onto a ship, but she didn't get on herself.

"Knight Master?"

"Oh good, you are safe."

"Aren't we going with them?"

"No, we are staying here."

"What? But Knight Master, we can't take any more of this. At least, not today."

She looked at the sweat matted children covered with blood and dirt. They had fought well today. Every one of them, better than any other, yet it still had not been enough. "We shall not leave Bermesiah until it is cleansed. Come, we will seek safe haven at our stronghold."

"The knights were bewildered. They were staying. They still had a chance to save Bermesiah and avenge the civilians.

"Knight Master."

"Yes?"

"We can't keep going, not like this! We need help."

"You'll get your help, don't worry." Knight Master didn't know from where, though. She didn't want to worry the children. They didn't need any ordinary help, she knew. They needed help from someone who could lead them, help them fight as one. But where was she going to find someone like that?

Chapter One: Pointing Trees

It was one of those days where you felt like doing absolutely nothing because of the horrible weather outside. Sonia had been stuck in her house for the past 6 hours surrounded by her family who in her defense weren't very fun people. She was used to being outside, playing alone or with others, doing whatever she could. It sounds silly for someone her age but she never really grew up to be a normal teenager.

Now, sitting all alone in her bedroom, Sonia decided she had had enough. No rain was going to stop her from going out. She ran to her closet and grabbed her yellow raincoat and rubber boots. She swung it over her shoulder as she exited her room and skipped down the stairs. "Mom, I'm going to a friend's house, we need to finish a project ok?"

Sonia mother had been in the kitchen preparing the night's dinner which seemed to look like rice, chicken, and boiled vegetables. She turned around holding a knife and carrot in her hand. "So suddenly? And that too when it's raining outside?"

"Mom, please, I really need to finish this project," Sonia pleaded.

"Fine, whatever. But be back before it gets dark out," her mother warned her.

Sonia nodded. "Mhmm, thanks, don't worry." And with that Sonia grabbed an umbrella and jumped out the door.

It wasn't so bad outside. There was a bit of wind but it was warm. The rain wasn't falling to hard either. It felt like it might stop soon. Sonia could hear the pitter patter of the raindrops has they hit the umbrella. No one else was out, but she didn't care. All she wanted was some fresh air.

After about three blocks the rain had become a light drizzle. There was even a bit of sun peeking out from behind a cloud. Sonia closed her umbrella so she could see the sky better. Just as she had thought! There was a rainbow!

Smiling, Sonia decided to follow it. Something she'd always wanted to do. The rainbow went south. There were no cars driving on the road and no other people, which made Sonia feel completely isolated. As if she was the only person on Earth. It was a good feeling, but odd at the same time. Sonia realized she had slowed down her pace, so she hurried on. There were still no people and now that she listened closer she realized she couldn't hear any birds chirping either. There were always birds.

Sonia looked up at the trees: where the birds usually were. There was something wrong about them. It looked as if they were pointing at something, but what was so wrong about that? Trees had branches. They always looked like they were pointing, but the longer she starred the more she began to realize what was so wrong. The tips of the trees were pointing west! And there was no wind to make them do that.

Sonia shook her head. There had to be a logical explanation. There always was. Why dwell on it? Besides, she was following a rainbow! She had no time for this!

Looking up at the sky again she saw that the rainbow had faded away. "How long have I been out?" she asked herself.

Sonia looked at the trees again. Still "pointing." _Maybe, just maybe, I should…follow, _she thought.

And she did. The trees weren't all pointing west. After a while they began to point south, then west again, then south again, then west. They never pointed north or east though.

The sun had finally come out. Looking at the position Sonia argued whether she should turn around and go back home. She had about an hour and a half until the sun set. She debated with herself for about five minutes until she walked into a clearing that she was positive hadn't been there before.

The grass in the clearing was greener than anywhere else and the trees surrounding it taller and healthier. There were even flowers and bushes here and there. In the middle of it all was a pond. Not too big but not too small either. To Sonia, the whole clearing looked out of place.

She walked towards the pond. The water was crystal clear. She could see her reflection. It was like looking in a mirror except, her reflection was altered in some way. At first she couldn't tell how, but then she saw that the clothing on her refection was different than the clothing she had on at that moment.

Sonia leaned in closer to get a better look. As she did, she began to feel lightheaded. She backed up, but the feeling just got worse. She looked into the pond again. Her reflection was gone. The dizziness in her head worsened even further. She began to fall forward, towards the pond, and the last thing she remembered before she passed out was that she didn't know how to swim.


	2. Chapter 2: The Boy with the Red Hair

Chapter Two: The Boy with the Red Hair

Sonia woke up with a massive headache. She had been dreaming about a war. A war that had destroyed most of the world yet it wasn't her world. She didn't know that for sure though, but there was something about the world in her dream that was unearthly.

She rubbed her eyes to clear up her vision. Looking around Sonia saw she was still in the clearing she had passed out in, except there was something different about it. The pond was still there. So were the flowers and bushes, but unlike before, it felt real.

Sonia stood up, still feeling a bit woozy. She walked to the pond. Maybe some water will make her feel better. She crouched near the edge, cupped her hands and splashed water onto her face. It was warm. She dried her face on her jacket as she turned around. She'd expected to see the pathway she had entered the clearing from, but there was nothing there. Just more trees.

_Maybe I'm dreaming…_Sonia thought. She decided that was it. There was no other explanation for what was going on. "Maybe I should explore…" she told herself.

Walking into a forest all alone without having any clue where you are is a scary thought. If there was one thing Sonia hated, it was being afraid. Normally she wouldn't have just journeyed into a forest all alone like this, but knowing it was a dream made it a totally different situation.

It was extremely warm. Even with the shade of the trees Sonia was beginning to sweat. She took her raincoat off and draped it over her arm. This was actually kind of boring. Walking around in a forest. She was about to turn back towards the clearing when she heard a noise. It sounded like a person, a boy to be exact.  
Sonia tried to make out the direction the voice was coming from. It was straight ahead.

She ran, dropping her coat somewhere along the way. Maybe if she caught up to whoever this person was she could ask if she was really dreaming or not. The voice had sounded a lot closer than it really was. She'd been running through the thickets for a while until she finally came to another clearing.

She hadn't really run into the clearing yet. She was on the edge. And she was glad. What she saw was hard to comprehend. A red haired boy wrestling some sort of animal. No, it wasn't an animal. It was…she didn't know what it was! It wasn't like anything shed ever seen before. It looked like an animal mixed with a fish and a human.

_I need to help that boy,_ she thought. Sonia looked around. Maybe there was something she could use. She spotted a rod with two blades at the end lying a bit to the left of where the boy and the creature were wrestling. Sonia tip toed towards it. The creatures back was towards her so he couldn't see her, but the boy could. When he saw Sonia walk towards his chamma he was surprised but he didn't say anything. He wanted to see what she planned on doing with it.

Sonia grabbed the weapon from the ground and snuck up behind the creature. It hadn't noticed her. The boy was keeping it busy. It was trying to bite his neck. _Oh no, better do something fast. _Without thinking and without any real technique Sonia raised the rod and hit the creature with it in the head hard enough for it to get confused. The boy took this chance to slip from under the creature, grab his weapon from the girl and stab it through the heart.

Sonia expected to see blood. Instead she saw the creature turn into what looked like a dark mud pile. _Ew._

The boy turned towards her and laughed. _He's laughing, _Sonia thought, _why is he laughing!_

"You had no idea what you were doing did you?" he said.

Sonia shook her head. She decided she wanted to get straight to the point. "Can I ask you something?"

The boy raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Uh, sure."

"Am I dreaming? I'm dreaming right? I can't seem to wake up," she told him.

The boy stood there expressionless for a couple of seconds before he said anything. "Why do you think your dreaming?"

"Because I woke up in this clearing a little bit away from here. I remember getting really dizzy and passing out and when I woke up, I tried to get home, but I couldn't find the pathway I'd come from," Sonia explained.

"This forest has no pathways," the boy said. "Where are you from, anyway."

"Where am I from?" Sonia asked.

"Yeah, which continent?" he asked.

"Continent? North America," Sonia replied.

Again, the boy stood there saying nothing for a bit before he replied. "I need you to come with me."

Well that was odd. "What why?" Sonia wondered. "I just met you I'm not going anywhere with you." Her mom had warned her against people like this.

The boy sighed. "I'm not going to do anything to you, I want you to meet my mentor."

Sonia thought about it. _Mentor? What did he mean by mentor? Who is this guy. What if he really doesn't mean any harm. This is a dream anyway so…  
"_Yeah sure, I'll come," Sonia agreed.

The boy smiled. "Good. Come on," he gestured.

Sonia nodded. "By the way. I didn't catch your name."

"Jin."


	3. Chapter 3: The First Encounter

Chapter Three: The First Encounter

It had taken a really long time to get to where Jin wanted to take her. They had been walking for over an hour. Sonia wondered what Jin had been doing so far away from his mentor. She was grateful when they had finally arrived. "We're here?!"

"Yup."

'Here' was what looked like a base camp of some sort. There was a fire pit, a lot of tents, a very big tree with a table underneath it and running through it all was a stream. Jin led her to the biggest of the tents.

"Where's everyone else?" Jin thought aloud.

_Everyone else? Who's everyone else, _Sonia thought.

The tent in which Sonia was guessing Jin's mentor must be in was grand. It was green like the rest, most likely to camouflage with the background, with gold outlining. The material it was made out of looked like soft thick velvet. Jin disappeared threw the entrance, expecting Sonia to follow.

All of a sudden Sonia got very nervous. Should she run? What if this really was some sort of trap? But it's all a dream right? She didn't have time for this. Putting all thoughts in the back of her mind Sonia followed Jin into the tent.

If the tent looked impressive from the outside it was completely mind blowing from the inside. For starters, it was huge! Way bigger than it looked from the outside. It made no sense. It didn't even look like a tent anymore. It looked like a mansion!

"Whoa.."

Jin stood in the middle of the "tent" at the foot of a spiral staircase. "What took you so long, come on. " He began to climb the stairs not even bothering to check if she was following or not. It didn't matter though, because Sonia followed anyway.

At the top of the stairs Sonia followed Jin down a long corridor. It was dark, but Sonia could see a string of light at the very back. There was a door there. She guessed that's where they were going…and she had been right.

"Alright, I'm sure everyone's in there so you'll get to meet them all," he told her.

"Them all?" Sonia asked, but she didn't get an answer to her question because Jin had already entered the room.

Sonia sighed. _Eh, I've got nothing to lose._

The first thing she noticed about the room was that it was burning inside. It was so hot. She didn't understand how anyone could spend even a minute in it. Then she noticed the group of teenagers.

There were lots of them. 20 almost all armed with weapons at their sides, and in the middle of them all stood a woman behind a wooden table. It looked like they had been discussing something, and Sonia had just interrupted…

"Jin, who's this?" the woman asked. "I thought we had evacuated everyone."

_Evacuate? _Sonia thought.

"Yeah, me too, but listen to what she has to say Knight Master." Jin told the woman.

_Knight Master? That's what she's called?_

All eyes were on Sonia. The woman was a bit too serious for her liking, and all the teenagers looked intimidating and unkind. She didn't think any of them found her very important. "Um, hi. My names Sonia."

No one said anything. Could this be any more awkward? All those eyes on her were making her feel very nervous. She decided to ask them how to get home, since she didn't really have anything else to say. "I was wondering, if you could help me get home…maybe?"

"Home? We don't have time to take you home."

The woman hadn't said this. This came from one of the teenagers standing in the room. The one with pitch black hair just like hers and grey eyes. The first thing Sonia noticed about him was his horrible attitude.

"Sieghart, don't be so rude," Knight Master warned.

"I don't need anyone to take me home, I just need to know how to get there and I can do they rest on my own," Sonia snapped.

"We've evacuated all of Bermesiah," Knight Master informed her," your family is most likely in Alcubra by now."

Sonia had absolutely no idea what this woman was blabbing on about. "Excuse me?"

At that moment Jin decided to finally step in and clear everything up. "Knight Master, she claims she's from Earth."

The whole room went silent, not that it was very loud before.

A smile started to creep on Sonia's face. Why were these people so weird?

No one said anything for a while until a cute girl with pink hair jumped up and ran to Sonia. "Oh my gosh! Earth?! Really? Can you tell me about it? Please please please!"

"Amy, please calm down. We don't even know if we can take her seriously yet," Knight Master said.

Sonia was getting kind of mad. What was with these people? Why were they looking at her like she was some kind of alien?! WHY WERE THEY DRESSED UP IN ARMOR?! WAS THIS SOME SORT OF TRICK!

At that moment something shot through Sonia. The girl with the pink hair had grabbed her arm while pleading and now it really really hurt.

"Ow! LET GO!" Sonia yelled.

Amy looked surprised. "All I did was touch you…"

But to Sonia it felt like more than a simple touch. It felt like she had just been run over by a 500 ton truck over and over again and for some reason she wouldn't die. The pain started worsening to the point where she couldn't take it. When it finally got to her head, Sonia thought she was dying. The last thing she remembered before she finally fainted was that this was the second time in one day.


	4. Chapter 4: The Adaptor

Hi :3  
A little note before the chapter.

I'd been asked to elaborate more on some of the things I have mentioned in my story. Well, I would, but I plan on having the readers learning everything at the same pace the protagonist does, so I'm sorry that you have to wait a little bit, but everything clears up so don't worry ^_^

* * *

Chapter Four: The Adaptor

Sonia had been out cold for about three days now. The members of the Grand Chase were taking turns watching over her one by one to make sure nothing went wrong.

What had happened was still a mystery. No one knew exactly why Sonia had reacted to Amy's touch that way she did, but they had all decided not to touch Sonia until they knew for sure what had happened.

Arme, the Grand Chase's magician, was working day and night researching why such a thing had happened. After three days of anticipation, she had finally called the Grand Chase to a meeting.

Everyone was seated at the table in the conference hall. At that moment no one was with Sonia. There was a crystal ball though, in the centre of the table in which they could see Sonia. That had to do.

"Well you all know what I've been doing the past few days and nights. I believe I've figured out what's happened. What Sonia is," she told the group.

"What she is? We all know what she is, she's an Earth human," Jin said.

Arme looked around at the whole group. She felt so proud of what she had discovered and she was very excited about telling everyone about it." Yes I agree she is an Earth human, but there's something different about this one."

Everyone looked at Arme like she was crazy. Everyone knew there was nothing special about Earth humans.

"Alright, then please tell us what you have leaned Arme," Knight Master urged.

Arme smiled and nodded. "Well at first I had no idea what was going on, but then I remembered an old myth I had learned about when I was younger and I looked into it. Apparently, long ago while our world was still forming and everything was in chaos, kind of like now, there was a being called the Adaptor. Well no, that's just the name everyone gave him. He was a very strong being able to mimic any fighting style if touched by someone who's mastered it, or can fight in the style fairly well. The Adaptor had helped to bring peace to the world by ending the wars between the Demons and the Gods. Once his work was done, he vanished. No one knows where, but it was rumoured he'd travelled to Earth somehow. "

The Grand Chase quietly listened to this myth. It made some sense, but could it really be true?

"So what you're saying is that if I touched that girl in there she'd acquire all the skills I have taken years to learn in a couple of seconds?" Rufus asked.

Arme nodded.

"Does that mean she can fight just like me now?" Amy asked.

"Yes. If I am correct she is now a fully functional Dancer," Arme informed her.

"And what about my other classes?" Amy inquired.

"Those too," Arme said.

Amy made a face of amazement.

"Doesn't this all seem very far-fetched?" Dio pointed out.

Arme was getting sick of all these questions. "Yes I agree it's far-fetched but think about it. There has been only one record of the adaptor in the past and that too when the world was at the edge of chaos. Don't you think it's more than a coincidence that she showed up right in the middle of the war knowing absolutely nothing and claiming she's from earth? She showed up at a time of great chaos just like the previous adaptor!"

"I see your point, but we can't get our hopes up now can we?" Mari said.

"Yeah, I personally don't even think she's worth the effort. She's an Earth human for god's sake she doesn't belong here. We should be working on getting her back to where she came from," Sieghart argued.

Arme sighed. This was going to go on all night.

It had taken a lot of arguing and a lot of mean words until everyone had come to a similar conclusion. If she happened to be an adaptor, they'd let her stay with the Grand Chase, but only if she was of any help. If she was not of any benefit they'd send her back to Earth. That had to do for now, though Arme wasn't very happy with how everyone else had reacted to news that she had been so excited to share. It didn't matter what the others thought though. There was something different about this girl and she knew it.

* * *

Sonia wasn't completely sure where she was. She remembered passing out, but that was it. For what seemed like ages, her mind had been in conflict with itself. One side trying to awaken the other refusing to do just that. Finally, the civil war of her mind had come to an end. Sonia opened her eyes. She was looking straight up at a completely white ceiling. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. There was a window to her left, and a door a little off to the right. She was on what looked like a hospital bed.

_What am I doing here?_ She wondered.

Getting up Sonia spotted a mirror on the opposite side of the room. She decided to go have a peek at her reflection. _I bet I look like a mess._

Walking towards the mirror, Sonia noticed something strange. Then, she couldn't help but scream.


	5. Chapter 5: Not a Dream Anymore

This is actually a very short chapter and I'm sorry for that. It's just that chapter 6 is going to be very long so this had to be kinda short. I hope no one minds ^^'

Anyways, thanks for reading :3

* * *

Chapter Five: Not a Dream Anymore

It was a warm peaceful day. At least it was until a scream from the main tent disrupted the silence of the forest. Everyone had been doing their own thing. They had just completed some training and had been planning on relaxing a bit before doing daily errands, but now every single member of the Grand Chase including Knight Master was rushing down the corridor of the medical hall.

Arme was the first to reach the room they had kept Sonia in. She slammed the door open, eager to see what was going on.

Sonia turned around when she heard that someone had entered. She saw all the teenagers she had met when she had gone to see Jin's mentor._ What, why are these guys still here! Am I still dreaming?!_

"What did you do to me?" Sonia demanded.

Knight Master, being the last to arrive, pushed her way to the very front. "Well, Arme. Looks like you might have just been correct."

Sonia turned her head to look at who Knight Master was speaking too. It was a girl, with violet hair and matching eyes. She was holding a thick book in her right hand and she looked very pleased with herself. "Right about what..," Sonia inquired.

Arme stepped forward and stood right in front of Sonia. "Do you mind if I touch you?"

Sonia cringed away. _What the hell! _She thought. "No. What. Why?"

Arme was worried about Sonia. She didn't look healthy at all. She hadn't had anything to eat or drink for a while now. "I want to test something."

"I'm not an animal that you can perform experiments on! And why do I look like this!" Sonia said, pointing at her reflection in the mirror.

She didn't like what she was seeing. Had they stripped her naked in her sleep and changed her up? What was that pink mark on her arm and why were her eyes a lighter brown? And what was up with her clothing? Why was she dressed like them?!

Arme walked towards Sonia. She needed to see the adaption with her own eyes, but Sonia moved back.

"Stop it, what are you trying to do?" Sonia asked.

"I'll show you," Arme said, almost dazed. She was very interested in what might happen if she touched Sonia.

Getting a little scared Sonia backed up to the window. She took a quick glance outside. It seemed that she was on the second floor. That wasn't too high right? If she jumped, she'd be fine…right?

As Arme inched forward Sonia realized there was no other way to get out. Everyone else was blocking the doorway and if she tried to run through that someone would surely grab her. _Why does there have to be so many of them!?_

Putting her hands on the window sill Sonia sat up.

Arme stopped. "What are you doing…?" she asked.

Sonia smiled at how surprised Arme looked. "Getting out of here," she replied.

"WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY?!" Someone yelled from behind. It was a boy's voice, but Sonia didn't have time to see who it was. She had leaned back. And now she was falling towards the ground.

* * *

She landed on the ground with a hard thud. "Ow…" She hadn't been expecting it to take that long to hit the ground. Looking up, Sonia expected to see everyone looking down at her from the window, except all she saw was the green tent with the gold outlining, and it defiantly didn't look like it was two stories high. _That's actually pretty cool, _Sonia thought.

Now that she was out of that room, she needed to get as far away as possible. She decided to run in the opposite direction she had first come from. There was no time to waste. She sprinted into the forest. Whatever this was, it wasn't a dream anymore.


	6. Chapter 6: Kerrie Beach

Chapter Six: Kerrie Beach

"What did she just do?!" Sieghart yelled.

Arme ran to the window. She saw Sonia running off into the forest. "Sonia's fine," Arme informed. "In fact she just ran full speed into the forest…"

Coming up from behind her Knight Master looked out the window. Sonia was nowhere in sight.

"What now?" Jin inquired.

Knight Master sighed. "I'll think about it. I want you to get back to whatever it was you were doing. Ill inform you all of my decision in the evening."

Eyeing each other the teenagers shrugged and exited the room.

"Knight Master," Arme said, "We need to find her…"

Turning around, Knight Master looked at the young magician. Arme had discovered something astounding, and she had just slipped through their fingers. She was right; they did need to find her…

Later that evening Knight Master called four of the Grand Chases members to her quarters. Everyone else was left to guess what was going on. Now, Arme, Amy, Sieghart and Jin all made their way to where Knight Master was.

"What have you decided?" Arme asked.

Knight Master turned around at the sound of the voice. She had been looking at a map hung behind her desk. "Oh, you're all here. Good." She sat in her chair. "I believe I've come to a well thought out conclusion."

"What's that?" Sieghart asked.

"Well, considering that this war is far from over and we don't seem to be winning I can't send you all to go after Sonia even if she seems quite valuable. For starters, we don't know for sure how valuable she really is, or if we can even find her again, that's why I've decided im only going to send you four after her." Knight Master got up again and looked at the map. "The only thing I don't know is where she might've gone…"

Arme stepped forward. "I saw her run into the forest towards the south. Roughly in the direction of Kerrie Beach. If she runs long enough, that's where she will most likely end up."

"Really?" Knight Master asked. "Then, how about you start there. I advise you leave as soon as possible. We can't let her get too far."

Sieghart couldn't believe what was happening. "You're sending me after that girl? Knight Master, we don't need her! I think we're doing perfectly fine the way we are. And even so, send someone else, I don't have time for this."

Knight Master glanced at the Gladiator. She smiled. "Well…to be honest, I have a reason why I picked who I picked. Arme; because she knows the most about what Sonia is, Jin; because that is who Sonia met first, Amy; because that is who Sonia seems to have adapted to, but you? I just don't need you here."

Sieghart's mouth dropped open. "What…"

Amy and Arme tried their best not to giggle.

"Now I've told you your task. Please do as I ask," Knight Master requested.

The four teenagers quietly exited Knight Master's quarters. One of them being very mad.

Knight Master turned back around towards the map. Sometimes that boy needed to be kept under control.

* * *

Sonia hadn't stopped running until she was positive it was safe to stop. She still had worries as she walked through the forest. She had so many questions. Where was she going? What had they wanted to do with her?

It was only about midday so Sonia didn't have to worry about it getting dark soon. She estimated that she had been out for about an hour and a half now. There had been nothing but trees for miles, but now they were finally starting to clear up a bit.

Looking down at herself she tried to make sense of what had happened so far. That evening she had left her house while it was still raining to escape her boredom. She'd come across a pond and fell unconscious. When she'd woken up she had met a boy. What was his name again? Oh yeah, Jin. He'd taken her to meet his "Mentor." And then…

Then what? That girl…with the pink hair. _She got super excited when Jin said I was from Earth…why? And then she'd touched me…and I fainted. _

But WHY? And then the girl with the purple hair. Arme, that's what the woman had called her. What had she meant by "I want to test something."

Lost deep in her thoughts Sonia heard a strange noise. She stopped and listened. Hearing it again she realized it was just her stomach.

"Where can I get some food?" she asked herself. Sonia hadn't realized how hungry she was. It felt like she hadn't eaten for days. It was obvious she wasn't going to find anything to eat where she was at at the moment so she pushed on.

Another hour passed by, and Sonia started to feel the ground getting softer. She looked down to see sand. There must be a beach up ahead!

Quickening her pace, Sonia anticipated the beach. Finally it arrived. It wasn't too big. It was actually kind of cute. There were trees that surrounded the beach in a semi-circle. The water was crystal clear and the beach itself was very clean. She'd never been to a beach like this before. In fact, this was her first time even being at a beach.

Sonia decided to set up a camp here for a while. She must be far enough from those people by now. There was just one problem. She had no idea what to do.

* * *

"Come on, pick up the pace you guys!" Amy giggled.

"Shut up Amy," Sieghart glared. There was a reason why he was walking so slow and Amy didn't seem to understand.

"She's right," Jin agreed. "Hurry up."

Arme was already far ahead. They could just make her out in the distance. She hadn't looked back once to see if the rest were still following.

Amy sighed. She'd been trying to lift up Sieghart's spirits ever since they'd left the camp, but nothing seemed to be working. "Why are you so angry?"

Sieghart looked up from the ground. Well for starters, Knight Master had embarrassed him in front of a crowd, but that could matter less. "I don't trust her."

"Who? Sonia?" Jin asked. "Why not? She hasn't given you any reason not to trust her."

"Your right," Sieghart replied, "she hasn't given me a reason not to trust her. But she also hasn't given me a reason to trust her either."

"Well, I think we should all give her a chance," Amy said.

"We scared her off…" Sieghart pointed out. "Even if we do give her a chance, who says she's going to give us one."

"I'll convince her," Jin assured them. "She trusted me once, she can trust me again."

"You need to stop being so naive, Jin," Sieghart said.

Jin couldn't understand what was bothering Sieghart so much. Even if he didn't like Sonia nor trusted her why was he so worried? The odds were against Sonia even if she did try to sabotage the Grand Chase. There was something else that Sieghart wasn't telling them. "Whatever you say, Sieghart. Come on, Amy, lets catch up to Arme."

Sieghart watched as the two ran into the distance. He sighed. Not wanting to be left behind, he ran full speed ahead.

* * *

After some well thought out conclusions Sonia had decided to set up her camp at the base of a really big tree. She had also found some berries growing on a bush and had feasted on those. So far she had created a fire pit and a skeleton for her tent out of dead branches that had been lying around the beach. Now she needed to find some really big leaves for the cover of her tent. And she had found them. Only problem was that they were near the top of some of the highest trees.

Climbing wasn't something Sonia did often so she was kind of frightened, but she really needed those leaves. Luckily there were A LOT of braches so she couldn't have much trouble getting to the top. Pulling herself up to the first branch, Sonia noticed something strange. She could hear rustling. Not from the direction she had first come from, but the opposite. _Could it be them? _She thought. _No, if it was them they'd arrive from the opposite direction…_

But then who was it?

Sonia decided to climb higher. Maybe then she could see who it was. She reached for the second branch. There was another branch mid-way and she put her feet on it. This way she was stable. Pulling herself up Sonia heard the rustling get louder. She kept climbing and climbing until she was roughly half way from where she needed to be. The rustling was coming from a different direction now but it was still close by. From where she was she had a clear view of the entire beach. It was a really good place to scout from. _Maybe I'll sit here for a while…_

Admiring the view, Sonia noticed a figure on the beach. She squinted. Was it one of those teenagers? No…it was too short.

Suddenly, another one appeared. _What the hell…?_

More and more kept appearing out of nowhere. It was like they were invisible. Some were bigger, others were smaller, but Sonia still couldn't tell what they were.

She could hear them talking. Except it wasn't English, or any other language she was familiar with. It was more like noises an animal might make. Sonia tried to understand what was going on. They were lining up one beside the other. Like an army. A mini army, since Sonia only counted about 20 of them. They were green and they were holding clubs.

The biggest one seemed to be the leader. He paced in front of the line of…whatever they were…and seemed to be saying something. Sonia squinted to try to see them better. They defiantly weren't human. They reminded her of…goblins. _Goblins?! _No, those couldn't be actual goblins.

Sonia began to climb higher. She needed to get out of sight before they noticed her in the trees, but before she had the chance to hide; one of the goblins turned around, and pointed straight at her.


	7. Chapter 7: Persuasion

Chapter Seven: Persuasion

With Knight Master busy with the earthling and everyone else distracted by the previous events Rufus had taken the time to sneak away without anyone knowing for a bit. He knew that now that he was part of the Grand Chase he wasn't supposed to be taking on any contracts, but how else was he supposed to make money? Besides, with the war going on there were a lot of people that wanted others killed, and a big boom in the Black Market.

The only person that had seen him creeping from the camp was Rin. He'd gotten kind of careless lately, and that wasn't good. That was what taking a break from his bounty hunting did. He'd been creeping into the forest when Rin had surprised him from behind.

"Where are you going," she had said.

"A walk," had been Rufus' reply.

Of course Rin knew very well that Rufus was not going for a walk, but she'd decided to say nothing about it.

His mind began to wander towards the events that had happened earlier that day. About the girl, the adaptor. What interested him the most was that Jin had said she was from Earth. If that was so, he wanted to know how. Were there portals opening on Earth like there was in the demon world? And if so, who was opening them?

Rufus approached a shack he was supposed to meet his newest client at. It was more of a bar to be honest. Even though everyone had been evacuated from Bermesiah, quite a bit of people had stayed back. Mostly wanted criminals and black marketers who needed to keep their businesses going.

He could hear the laughter of men inside of the shack. _If they don't quiet down an Infected will scout them out and crash their party, _he thought.

Rufus stood in the dark waiting for a while. After a couple of minutes the door to the shack creaked open.

"You coming in or what?" A man's voice asked.

Rufus smiled. So they had finally noticed him. He walked towards the shack and entered through the door. Inside was exactly what he had expected. A bunch of drunken men and slutty women.

The man that had let him in led Rufus to an empty table at the very back.

Sitting down, a waitress who happened to be showing a lot of skin poured him a drink that he did not want. Once she left, Rufus got to the point.

"So who is it?" He asked the man sitting across from him.

His voice had made him sound a lot older than he was, but now that Rufus could see him somewhat clearly in the dim light of the shack he estimated the man to be about 27.

"I heard you're one of the best around. Your awfully young to be a bounty hunter don't you think?" The man asked.

"If all you're going to do is chat then its best I'd be going," Rufus replied.

The man smiled exposing his rotting teeth. "Alright alright, I'll get to the point," he said, chuckling a bit.

_What the hell was so amusing_, Rufus thought.

"I need you to kill a man," he continued.

_Well obviously. _

"He's a drug dealer from the black market. At least that's what he says. Turns out he's working for one of them Infected'. I saw him conversing with one myself, and he saw me watching him. That's why I need him killed. He's out to get me."

Rufus nodded. That was a good enough reason for him. You see, though he was a bounty hunter he only took on contracts that he thought were...somewhat noble, you could say or contracts that interested him. "I'll do it. But you'll have to pay a pretty hefty price considering the fact that he's close with the Infected. Who knows, maybe he could even call them in for back up."

The man nodded. "I understand. I'll pay whatever, just please get rid of him."

Rufus stood up. "I need the cash up front," he informed.

The man looked surprised. "Right now? I don't know about that..."

Rufus shrugged. "Goodbye then."

He took a couple of steps in the direction of the door.

"WAIT!"

Rufus turned to see the man right behind him.

"Ok,ok. I'll pay," he said, giving in. "How much?"

Rufus smiled."150,000 coins."

* * *

"How much longer, Arme? I'm getting really tired..."

Amy had begun complaining about the trip 2 hours into it. How had they not caught up to Sonia yet? Had she really run the whole way?!

"Amy, calm down," Arme said, we're pretty much already there. Look. The ground is already turning into sand."

Amy squealed. "Yay!"

The four of them quickened their pace. Kerrie Beach was just up ahead. This was their one and only lead. If they couldn't find Sonia here, they'd have to look around for more clues.

All of a sudden, Arme stopped. She was at the front of the group so everyone noticed.

"What's wrong?" Sieghart asked.

"Shh, I heard something," Arme explained.

Everyone quieted down and listened. At first there was nothing, but then they heard it.

"Are those…goblins?!" Jin asked.

"I think so," Arme replied. "By the sounds of it, it seems like they've scouted something out. You don't think it's…"

"Sonia!" Sieghart finished. He was about to run when Arme held him back.

"What are you doing!?" he demanded.

"We can't just run in there," Arme said," we have to remain unseen. Who knows how many there are."

Sieghart sighed. She was right. "Alright, then how do we do this, Arme?"

"I suggest we split up into groups of two. One of us will make our way to the other side of the beach. The other two will stay on this side. If we need to attack, we'll get them from both sides by surprise."

Sieghart nodded. "Got it. Jin, you come with me."

"Alright," Jin agreed.

Arme was getting even more excited than she had been before now. "And I guess you're with me, Amy. Ok, let's do this!"

* * *

"Come on run faster! We have to get to the other side!"

Sieghart and Jin had been running their fastest but they still hadn't made it to the other side of the beach. It was bigger than it looked.

Earlier they had snuck to the very edge of the beach to see what was going on. What they had suspected had been right. On the beach was a bout 15-20 goblins all lined up. They were lined up side by side and there seemed to be a leader lecturing them about something. They couldn't make out what was going on though since neither Jin nor Sieghart were fluent in Goblin.

"Jin…" Siegharts voice trailed off.

Jin turned around to face Sieghart. He was standing a couple of meters behind him looking straight up. Jin couldn't understand why. "Sieghart, what are you doing! Come on your wastin-"but then he saw it.

Up in a tree was Sonia trying to climb down as fast as she could. So it really was her that the goblins had spotted.

It looked like she was having a lot of trouble getting down. She kept slipping and losing her grip.

"HEY!" Jin yelled, to get her attention.

Sonia looked down. When she saw the two boys she was so shocked she lost all of her grip and fell out of the tree.

"Catch her!" Jin called out to Sieghart.

Sieghart ran to where he estimated Sonia would fall, but before Sonia made it to the groud she caught hold of another branch.

"What do you want!" she demanded. "Leave me alone!"

"We're here to help you," Sieghart explained.

Sonia shook her head. "NO! GO AWAY!" She tried her hardest to climb back up, but then she remembered the goblins. "I need to get out of here. There's something weird on the beach."

"We know," Jin said. "That's why we're here. To help you."

"I don't need your help," Sonia said. She dropped to the ground and landed on her feet. "Ow…"

"Oh, you don't need our help? Then tell us how you're planning on getting somewhere safe," Sieghart challenged.

"Run," Sonia said. She was about to take off when Sieghart grabbed the back of her shirt. "LET GO!"

"No."

Sonia turned around and tried to punch the boy, but he dodged it and she missed.

Jin walked up from behind. "We're not going to hurt you," he explained. "We honestly didn't mean to frighten you or anything. There's just something about you that doesn't make sense."

But Sonia didn't want to hear anything. She twisted from Sieghart's grip and ran without paying attention to where she was going. She ended up on the edge of the beach, in plain sight of the goblins. Sieghart and Jin ran up from behind her.

Sieghart sighed. "Now look what you've done."

* * *

From the opposite side of the beach Arme and Amy had been silently watching when they saw three figures run onto the beach.

"IT'S THEM!" Amy shouted. "Ooo, what's Sonia wearing? It's so cute!"

Arme glanced at Amy. "Its almost the same thing you have on." She got up from behind the bush to get a better view. Amy was right. It really was them, but what the hell were they thinking!? Running into plain sight like that! The goblins had surely seen them.

_Guess there's no surprise attack_, Arme thought. "Come on, Amy. We need to help them."

Arme and Amy were about to run onto the beach as well, when they realized just how stupid that was.

"Wait..." Arme said. "Let's wait a bit and see what they do."

"But Arme, the goblins..." Amy said.

Arme looked over at Amy and glared at her. There was something she wanted to see happen, and Amy would just have to deal with it. Right now, Arme was more serious than ever. "Trust me."


	8. Chapter 8: Slaughter

Chapter Eight: Slaughter

It was getting dark. Sieghart, Arme, Jin and Amy were still not back and Rufus was nowhere to be seen. Knight Master was locked up in her quarters and no one knew what she was doing. They hadn't heard from her all afternoon.

"What are we supposed to do...?" Elesis asked. "This isn't fair. How come we didn't get to go?"

"Calm down, Elesis. I'm sure Knight Master has her reasons," Lire assured her.

Everyone was sitting around the fire pit. It would be dark soon, which meant the temperature would drop substantially. They needed to get a fire going soon.

"They should've been back by now..," Mary said.

Rin walked over to her. "Don't worry, they'll be back."

"I don't see what the big deal is," Dio said. Everyone had been going on about the girl all afternoon, and he was getting tired of it.

"For once I agree with Dio," Ley pitched in.

"Why? You can't just not be interested. I mean, she says she's from Earth. Doesn't that intrigue you even just a little bit?" Lime asked.

Ley and Dio both shrugged.

They'd been doing this for hours. Debating whether the girl would be of any use. Whether she was important. Whether this was all a waste. Some of them were very excited whereas others could care less. The whole time Lass had been quietly standing off to one side listening to the individual opinions. They all seemed to have their feelings sorted out, except for him.

He knew what it felt like, to wake up all of a sudden and not recognize anything. Although, the Grand Chase hadn't given him such a hard time when they had first met him. But times were different now. Was she really from Earth? Part of him wanted to sympathize with her, but the other still had doubts. What if she really was a spy of some sort? What if she would betray them...?

"Lass! What's wrong, why are you over there. Come and join us," Ronan called out to him.

He walked over, picking up his daggers before he left. There were four logs surrounding the fire pit creating a square...or a diamond, if you really wanted to argue. The days were getting shorter as winter approached. The sun had already started setting around 8 pm. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Six," Dio replied.

Two more hours. Two more hours and then the sky would begin darkening. There was a lot of forest in the direction Sonia had ran off to, and night was when the Infected liked to wander the most. They needed to get back...and soon.

* * *

Sonia stood, frozen to the ground. What had she just done? She heard someone run up behind her.

"See what you've done now…idiot,"Seighart said.

Normally, Sonia would've been irritated by such a comment, but right now she was too busy gawking at the scene in front of her. From up in the tree, the figures on the beach hadn't seemed too big, but now that she was at the same level as them, it was easier to tell their size. Some were shorter than her, but others…were HUGE…and ugly.

On the other side of the beach, the goblins were surprised to see their target run onto the beach. This made their job so much easier. They had been sent out to get rid of any humans they could find. Honestly, they hadn't expected to find any at all, until they had spotted one up in the trees. But now, instead of one, there were three!

"Can we take them?" Jin asked.

"Of course we can," Sieghart replied.

"But what about Soni-"Jin began, but he was interrupted by the sound of dozens of footsteps charging towards them.

_Oh gosh, what's happening_, Sonia thought. She was still shocked by Jin's and Sieghart's sudden arrival and her first instinct was to run, but for some reason her body wasn't responding.

"You stay back here," Sieghart warned her. He didn't even look at her before he ran off in the direction of the goblins. His purpose right now was to keep them as far away from Sonia as he could. She was helpless in a situation like this, he knew.

Jin left right behind him, and Sonia was left standing all alone.

This was her chance. This was her chance to get away from these crazy people. But then...why wasn't she running? Why wasn't she leaving?!

Sonia watched as Sieghart and Jin met the goblins. They both had weapons now and it was pretty obvious what they planned on doing...but there were so many goblins. How could they possibly kill them all...?

Kill them...  
They were going to kill to them.  
Sonia hadn't ever thought about killing before. It was just something that didn't ever occur to her, but these guys seemed trained to kill. Was this what they did? Kill?

She watched as Sieghart sliced one of the goblins in half. Dark green goo splashed out from the wound covering the ground. It made her sick but she couldn't look away. On the other end Jin was battling three of them with his bare hands! From behind him a fourth one, much bigger than the ones he was already handling, approached and hit him in the back with what looked like a club, flinging him a couple of feet away.

Sonia gasped. What should she do?! _I need to help!_ She thought. _I need to do something._ Everything was so confusing. She wanted to breakdown, cry and disappear. Nothing made sense anymore! Why was this happening to her?!

_Calm down_, she told herself. _You can't freak out now. Think. THINK._

Sonia watched as Sieghart tried to make his way towards Jin, who was starting to get back up. If she thought of this as a game, would it be as scary?  
She sighed. She couldn't just leave them, and even though she was positive she was just going to get beat up…she ran. She ran as fast as she could all the way to Jin. If they could do it, why couldn't she?

Jin saw her coming a few metres away.

"Go away!" he yelled at her.

He saw her shake her head. Jin tried to get up but one of the smaller goblins was on top of him trying to tear at his clothing. He flung it off and stood up. As he got up, the goblin that had hit him in the back swung his club at him again. Jin dodged it and hit it in the stomach. The blow had confused it and while it was trying to get its breath back Jin punched it in the face, breaking its skull, just as Sonia approached him. He swung around and grabbed Sonia by the shoulders.

She gasped in surprise.

"You can't be here," he told her.

Sonia pushed away. She'd come to help, not to be told to go away.

Sieghart had also noticed Sonia. _She really is an idiot_, he thought. Twirling his sword, he severed the heads of 3 goblins and tried to make his way to Sonia and Jin when he was attacked from behind. One of the goblins had hit his head with a spiked club. He fell to the ground the pain stinging through his entire upper body. "Arghh." He grabbed his head trying to get rid of the dizziness. He could feel the blood dripping down his forehead.  
Still arguing with Sonia, Jin spotted Sieghart on the ground. "SIEGHART!" he yelled, and forgetting all about Sonia, he ran as fast as he could to help his friend.

* * *

Still in the bushes, Arme and Amy watched the battle.

"We need to help them!" Amy warned.

There was a ring of truth to what Amy was saying. Arme too was beginning to believe that there wasn't anything special about Sonia. She should've done something by now, but she hadn't. Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe Sonia was just an average Earth human.  
"Alright, let's go," Arme said, getting up. But just as they were about to leave…it happened.

* * *

Sonia stood in the middle of chaos with her eyes closed telling herself to wake up. There was no way this was real, no way. She heard something crawl towards her from behind.

Opening her eyes, she swung around and saw one of the goblins coming towards her, getting ready to slash at her with its club. She tried to run but it grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up. "Put me down!" she yelled. The goblin threw her to the ground and when she tried to get up it hit her on the side near her right rib.

Sonia put her hand on the wound. She thought it was just a scratch but when she lifted her hand she saw a lot more blood then she expected seeping through the pink and purple fabric. To her surprise, instead of pain, she felt something else. It was a warm feeling and she felt a rush of energy flowing through her entire body.

Her eyes had shut to avoid seeing the blood, but now that she opened them she saw two pink circular objects at her feet. They were etched with intricate designs and edged with silver blades. _Use them_, a voice whispered to her. Sonia looked around, but saw no one except for the goblins.  
There were fewer goblins now than before, but still quite a bit. In fact, one was coming right for her. There was no time to think. Sonia picked up the weapons, one in each hand. Alright, she thought, let's do this.

It was closing in on her. She could hear Jin shouting something at her from behind, but she didn't heed him. She could do this. She knew she could. The closer it got, the more adrenaline she felt. There was something seeping through her veins, something that gave her immense energy. Although she knew absolutely no idea what she was doing, she felt confident.

The goblin was now right in front of her. She jumped over it, something she didn't think she could do. If she was really going to kill, she was going to take them all down in one shot.

Now all the remaining goblins were in her sight. Sieghart had taken out four of them; Jin had killed around the same amount. There was about 12-13 of them left. She could do this.

The rush of energy she was feeling kept increasing. Something was happening to her. The weapons she gripped so tightly in her hands were radiating a strange light which slowly enveloped Sonia whole. It was warm…and comforting.

The other goblins had begun to notice something peculiar was going on. They turned away from Sieghart and Jin and made their way towards Sonia.

Jin, breathing heavily, looked around, confused. What was going on?

The goblins were in a line. Almost single file. All she needed to do was aim…

And that's exactly what she did.

She'd reached her limit. The energy in her, too much. Flipping into the air, Sonia threw one of the circular blades vertically as hard as she could. Mid-flight, her weapon increased in size and radiated a strange fire, which cut through all the goblins in front of her, leaving a green gooey mess.

* * *

The sound of a dozen goblins being slaughtered was a disgusting one, and you could hear it all throughout the entire beach. A couple of miles away, the Orc Lord felt a strange emptiness. Something had happened...but what? Was his troop alright? His people had been dying quite quickly lately. There were tons of different species of Infected and sometimes one species would attack another just for fun. His people were the ones that were bullied the most among the Infected. They were considered weak.

His own thoughts angering him, the Orc Lord called upon his people. This time, it would be them doing the attacking.

* * *

Sonia landed on the ground, no longer glowing. The circular blade shot back at her like a boomerang. She held out her hand, and caught it. That's when she recognized just how tired she was. Looking up, she saw Jin and Sieghart on the ground. Behind them she saw two figures running out from the bushes. _More goblins?_ She thought. But before she could confirm that, she fell unconscious.


	9. Chapter 9: Adaptologist

Chapter Nine: Adaptologist

It was well past 9 and Rufus was still not back. He was walking through the forest as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.

The man in the bar had told him that his target was associated with the Infected, but by the looks of it, that seemed very far from the truth. He'd spend all evening following his target around. He was a middle aged man, living all by himself, in a little hut not far away from the bar.

Rufus had snuck into the house and looked around for a bit while the man was out tending to his petit vegetable garden. It was a small hut. Two rooms. One which served as a living room and a kitchen, occupied only by a fireplace, a small stove and a couch in front of a table. The other one was a bedroom.

The bedroom was just as boring as the previous room. It contained a bed, and small night table, a window and absolutely nothing that could connect him to the Infected. He would've looked around more, but the man had returned, forcing Rufus to climb out the window and hide from sight.

_He was just a normal old man_, Rufus thought.

But this made no sense. Why would the man in the bar need this man dead? There was something amiss. And Rufus knew exactly where to find the missing piece.

Walking into the opening of the hut once again, Rufus hid all of his weapons out of sight in the inner pockets of his jacket. He didn't want to frighten the old man before he even got any information out of him.

_How do I approach this?_ Rufus thought. _What should I tell him…?_

He could see light shining through the window of the man's bedroom. So he was still awake…

The door of the hut was plain. There was a keyhole and a knocker made of brass metal. He lifted his hand to knock, but before he had the chance, the door swung open and in the entrance stood the middle aged man.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"Uhh...," Rufus didn't know what to say. He hadn't expected it to be this hard, but the old man had a demanding aura. One that suggested he might've been a solider in the past. "I'm here because I have some…inquires."

The old man snorted. "Inquires? At this time of night. There's something fishy going on."

"Fishy…no, I just have some questions, that is all…" Rufus explained.

Sighing, the man stepped away from the door. "Might as well come on in then."

Rufus stepped into the hut. It was a lot warmer than before and he could smell the strong stench of coffee. He followed as the man walked towards the couch.

"I won't give you a tour, since you've already been in here once before," the man said.

Rufus was taken aback, but as he sat beside the old man he didn't show it. "How'd you know?"

The old man chuckled. "Oh, I know everything."

"So you know why I'm here?" Rufus asked.

"Except that…" The old man grabbed a coffee mug that had been sitting on the table and took a sip. "What would you like to know?"

"Simply, where you were the past couple of weeks. What you saw, what you were doing..."Rufus explained.

Raising his eyebrows the man took another sip from his cup. "Why?"

"So that you can prove your innocence," Rufus replied.

"Innocence?" the man asked.

Rufus nodded.

Shrugging, the old man placed his cup on the table in front of them. "Fine. I have nothing to hide. A couple of days ago I met up with a dealer that-"

"What kind of dealer?" Rufus interrupted.

"A black market dealer. I use him to get through to my wife. She's on a completely different continent right now. Silver Land. . Since communication within the continents has been restricted ever since the Infected took over that's the only way for me to ever get in touch with her and my children," the man explained.

Nodding, Rufus prompted the man to continue. "What else?"

"What else?" The man looked into the distance, trying to recall any important events. "Oh, yes. Here's something. On my way back I'd seen a man. He was talking with a rather strange creature. I'm not sure if it was an Infected or some other race, but I didn't find it necessary to hide myself from them, so I walked right by them."

Rufus got up. He'd gotten what he had come for. "Thank you."

"Is that all you need to know?" the man asked.

"Yes." Rufus began walking towards the door. "Don't worry. Nothing will happen to you." And with that, he left, leaving the old man wondering about their encounter for days on end.

* * *

Criminals never sleep. They can't. If they do, they risk the chance of getting caught. That's why even at 1 in the morning the bar was still as busy as always. Walking through the doorway, the first thing Rufus saw was a man passed out on the floor. It was disgusting. How come none of these "men" knew their limits?

He looked around for the man he had met earlier, but couldn't see him anywhere. He couldn't have just left, could he?

Spotting the bartender, Rufus made his way towards him. "Excuse me."

"Yes?" The bartender was drying a large glass that he was about to fill up with beer for a customer. "Something wrong, sir?"

"No." Rufus said. "I just need to know if you know where that man went. The one I was talking to earlier. Around the age of 30, rotting teeth?"

The bartender shook his head. "You have to be more specific than that my friend."

Nodding, Rufus walked away. Alright, he'd ask someone else then.

Moving to the back of the bar, Rufus stood, watching the crowd. Where was she? Where was that waitress? He scanned the crowd once more with his red eyes. Just when he was about to give up, he spotted her. Sitting on some man's lap…

"I need to speak with you," Rufus said. He didn't really like the woman, so he didn't bother showing any kind of respect at all.

"Is that how you talk to a lady?" the woman teased.

Sighing, Rufus grabbed the waitress by the arm and dragged her to an isolated corner. "I need some information from you."

The waitress jerked a step back. "What do you need to know…?" She was clearly unpleased with his behavior. No one had ever treated her like that before. All the other men were always so kind and gentle.

"You remember who I am, don't you?" Rufus inquired.

The waitress nodded.

"That man I was with earlier," he continued," where has he gone?"

"Oh, Aeron you mean? He left for Silver Land a couple of hours ago. He said he had some people he needed to deal with there," the waitress told him.

"People? What kind of people?" Rufus asked.

The waitress shrugged.

Realizing she was no more help, Rufus pushed his way past her and the rest of the crowd. Silver Land? The old man's family lived in Silver Land.

What was this "Aeron" up too..?

* * *

That night, when Sieghart, Amy, Arme and Jin had finally returned everyone had completely forgotten all about Rufus.

They'd brought Sonia back safe and sound as far as everyone could tell, except for the fact that she was out cold. Sieghart and Jin had taken turns carrying her to the camp.

Knight Master had immediately ordered medical care and Mari had set off to work.

Once Sonia was finally being monitored and they had confirmed the fact that there wasn't anything life threatening to worry about Arme told everyone what had happened.

"So it's true. She really is an adaptor," Knight Master said.

Everyone had been having a hard time believing it. They never actually expected it to be true…not even Knight Master, but she hadn't wanted to say anything that would break Arme's hopes. There were so many pieces missing, nothing made sense, yet here she was. An Earth girl. An adaptor.

"Except by the looks of it, she has no idea how to use her powers…" Arme informed.

"Then what do you purpose we do?" Knight Master asked Arme.

Everyone looked at her, waiting for her reply.

Arme cleared her throat. "Well, on our way back, I'd been doing some research." She pulled out a book from under her arm. It was a dark shade of purple with a blank cover and the pages were lined with gold. "I read up some more on the history of adaptors. Not a lot of people know about them, but there are others that dedicate their entire lives to the study of an adaptor. It may seem like a simple thing; adapting I mean, but it's not.

"Arme, get to your point already…" Dio urged.

She looked over at the demon and apologized. "Right, sorry, um, where was I? Oh, right. There's an adaptologist I read about in this book-"

"Adaptologist?" Ronan asked.

Arme nodded. "It's what you call someone that studies adaptology, which is the study of adaptors. There are very few people that know about adaptors now days, so I'm surprised there are even any adaptologists left. In fact I think this one might be the last one. Her name is Syrelia."

"Syrelia? What about her last name?" Knight Master asked.

"It does not say," Arme replied.

"So, what? You want us to find this woman?" Dio asked

Arme nodded. "Yes."

Knight Master walked towards Arme and gestured for the book. Arme handed it to her. "Well, if it's what we have to do, it's what we're going to do"

* * *

Sonia woke up to sunlight shining on her face. It was so bright she just couldn't sleep anymore. Wait…why was she sleeping? Sitting up, Sonia looked around. She was in that same room she had been in before, when she had jumped through the window. _Great, I'm back where I started. _She lied back down looking at the ceiling. That's when she realized she wasn't wearing any clothes.

Someone was fiddling with the doorknob. Sonia grabbed the covers and made sure she was completely covered, just in time for a girl with blue hair to walk in. "Who are you."

The girl didn't say anything at first. She just watched Sonia, cocooned in her sheets. Then she finally replied. "Mari."

Sonia watched as the girl walked over to the side of her bed.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

Sonia thought about it. She actually felt just fine. "I'm alright."

Mari nodded. "Can you get up?"

Sonia blushed. "Uhm, no."

Mari looked confused.

"My clothes…are gone," Sonia explained.

"Gone?" Mari asked. "No one took your clothes off though…"

At that moment, someone else knocked on the door. "Mari it's me, Arme. "

"Come in."

Sonia watched as Arme walked through the door. She didn't shut it behind her.

"You're awake!" she exclaimed, upon seeing Sonia sitting up in bed.

Sonia nodded.

"Let me go get the others!" Arme said, and she ran out of the room.

"Wait no!" Sonia tried to protest, but Arme ignored her.

Seconds later almost every member of the Grand Chase was in her room, including Knight Master.

_But, my clothes.., _Sonia thought.

"You look fine and healthy," Knight Master smiled at her.

Sonia smiled back. It was a weak smile though. She still didn't know if she could trust these people.

"She says she's not wearing any clothes," Mari informed her.

Sonia felt her face grow warmer. She didn't want everyone to know that!

Knight Master looked down at her a bit amused. "You don't have clothes on?"

Sonia shook her head. "I don't know where they went."

"Alright who stripped her?" Sieghart asked, looking towards all the boys accusingly.

"No one stripped her," Arme explained. "It's because she doesn't know how to use her adaptor abilities properly yet. When she adapted with Amy, her clothing changed into those similar to Amy's armor. But we don't know where her clothing went, now do we? When an adaptor changes back, they have to bring their original clothing back as well. Sonia doesn't know how to do that, which is why her clothing never returned."

"So whenever she finishes adapting to someone she's just gonna end up naked?" Sieghart asked.

"Until she learns otherwise, yes."

Sonia felt a bit uncomfortable being talked about like this. "Can I get some clothes now…"

"Of course," Knight Master said. "You look about Amy's size. Amy, can you please lend Sonia some of your clothing?"

"Yup!" Amy looked at Sonia for a moment and smiled. "I know exactly what to get you!"

As she ran out of the room, Sonia felt as though Amy was about to play dress up with her.

"Well, we'll all leave you to it. When you're done here, please feel free to explore a bit. This evening we are all meeting in the conference hall after dinner. I would like for you to attend, Sonia," Knight Master informed.

Mari, Arme and Sonia all nodded their understanding. Arme waited until everyone had left before she turned to Sonia and smiled. "This is going to be so much fun!" she said.

Sonia had no idea what she was talking about, and she didn't have time to ask because Amy showed up with the clothing she had promised.

She had been right. Amy did want to play dress up with her. She stood in front of the mirror observing herself. Amy had given her a sleeveless plain white dress with black lace bordering the hem and black ribbon tied into a bow at her waist. It was girly, not something she was accustomed to wearing, but she had no other choice. Amy had even forced Sonia to let her do her hair and now it fell down her back in delicate waves.

"You look sooo adorable," Amy complimented Sonia, pinching her cheeks.

"Ow…" Sonia felt tears forming in her big eyes. "That really hurt."

Amy let go. "Sorry, sometimes I forget my own strength."

Sonia rubbed her cheeks and looked towards Arme and Mari. "What do you think?" she asked, trying to be formal.

"You look lovely," Arme said, Mari nodding her agreement.

Sonia smiled at them. She remembered what Knight Master had said before she left. She began walking towards the door, leaving behind the other three girls.

"Where are you going?" Amy asked.

Sonia turned around and smiled. "To explore."


	10. Chapter 10: Part of the Team

Chapter Ten: Part of the Team

Sonia decided that before she explored outside, she'd explore inside. Considering the fact that inside was a lot bigger than outside.

The medical hall was straightforward and simple, just a whole bunch of rooms full of hospital beds.

Once outside the medical hallway, there was 3 ways she could go.

Down the stairs, which were to her right, left into the hallway that had Knight Master's quarters in it, or forward, into another hallway.

She went forwards and realized that all the rooms in that hall were bedrooms. But then why did they have tents outside?

Confused Sonia made her way down the spiral staircase.

No one had been on the top floor; except for Knight Master who Sonia was guessing was in her quarters. She seemed to spend a lot of time in there.

At the bottom of the staircase, Sonia walked to the entrance then turned around to observe the first floor and recall the very first time she had been there.

Back then, all of this had been a dream to her. Now she had accepted it as reality, but nothing still made sense to her.

Looking around, Sonia saw the entrances to 4 hallways. 2 near the front, one going left, the other right. And then two at the back. One on the left; the other right, but those two hallways were at an angle. She decided to go to the right hallway in the back.

Walking through it, there weren't any doors other than the large wooden door at the very back. The door was carved with what looked like words, but not in the English alphabet. There was no lock on the door, just two handles, both made of gold.

Sonia pulled on one of the handles, opening one of the doors, and entered the room.

On the other side was a library. The biggest library she had ever seen. The ceiling was one of the highest ever. There was bookshelf after bookshelf, and they almost reached the ceiling!

From the looks of it she was at the very front of the library, which also consisted of a large table and several chairs and couches.

She starred at the library in sheer amazement. Then Sonia realized she wasn't alone.

Sitting at the table surrounded by piles of books, was Mari. She hadn't noticed that someone had entered the library.

Sonia decided to make herself known. She walked up to Mari until she was right behind her. "Mari?"

She didn't reply.

Sonia tried again. "Mari?"

Still no reply.

_Alright, you asked for it_, Sonia thought.

Sonia reached over Mari's shoulders and tickled her sides, expecting her to giggle, but Mari just closed her book and turned around to see who it was that had disturbed her reading.

"Oh, hello," she said.

Sonia felt her cheeks go red. Well, that was kind of embarrassing. "Aren't you ticklish? "Sonia asked.

"No, not at all," Mari replied. "Are you?"

Sonia scratched her head, trying to get through the awkwardness. "Yes, very. Im sorry I disturbed you."

"Don't worry about it," Mari said, as she turned back around to continue reading her book.

"Um, Mari?"

"Yes?"

"Im not on earth, right?"

"Nope."

"Well…are there any books…about this planet?"

"There are books about the continents, this world, the underworld, and earth as well. They are all in the same section."

"May I borrow them?"

"Of course. You'll find them on the very first shelf, on the bottom to the right."

"Thank you."

Sonia made her way to the location Mari had told her. If any of this was actually real, there were some things Sonia wanted to know about.

There were four hardcover books. Each a different colour, but the exact same thickness…more or less.

Guessing that there was one for each topic Mari had mentioned, Sonia grabbed all four, and then quietly slipped out of the library, in hopes of not disturbing Mari once again.

With the books in her hand, Sonia didn't feel like exploring inside anymore. Instead, she wanted to go outside and find a place to read. Making her way through the hallway, she began thinking about what Knight Master had said about the conference hall. She was invited…but why?

Outside the tent, Sonia stood for a while taking in the sun. It was so warm. It felt good on her skin, but then she remembered she didn't have any sunscreen on!

_Better find some shade, _she thought.

Outside was exactly how she remembered it. The fire pit was still there, though there were a lot of ashes in it this time. _Doesn't anyone ever clean it? _No one was in sight. Where was everyone?

Sonia spotted the big tree with a table underneath she had seen on her first say and made her way towards it. It was a perfect spot to read.

She put the books on the table and sat down at the base of the tree. She knew she had said she would read, but it was so nice out. And quiet. All she wanted to do was sit and look at the sky. It was bluer, and the clouds were whiter.

There was rustling from behind. Sonia turned around abruptly to see what it was. She was half expecting it to be a goblin. She still hadn't gotten over the events of Kerrie Beach and she was trying her best not to think about it, but it wasn't a goblin. It was a boy. She remembered seeing him in Knight Master's quarters the first time she'd ever been there, but he hadn't been in the room when she'd awoken with no clothes on.

He looked down at her with expressionless eyes. Sonia stood up, a bit curious.

"What are you doing…" he asked, but it wasn't really a question.

The boy scared her a little bit, she didn't know why, but he didn't seem like the other's she'd talked to so far. Not wanting to show him that he frightened her, Sonia decided to give him a very vague answer. "Nothing."

He stood there for a bit and watched her. Sonia felt uncomfortable not knowing what he was thinking. She decided to ask him where everyone else was.

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't been around for a while in case you didn't notice."

"No, I didn't notice," Sonia replied. "I thought maybe you were just one of those haters that didn't want anything to do with the "Earth Girl" so you didn't show up..."

The boy was surprised by her reply. She sounded hurt, kind of how a child would sound when he failed at making friends on the first day of school.

He wasn't the only one surprised. Sonia was too. She hadn't meant to say that. She hadn't even noticed that she felt that way.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

"Sonia."

The boy didn't understand why she had so much emotion. Was this how Earth Humans were like? It didn't matter to him though. He had more important things to think about. "You shouldn't be so sensitive, you know. There's no point feeling more than you need to…" he said. Then he left.

* * *

The reason the camp had been so empty was because everyone was in the training room. By the looks of it, they would be going to Silver Land soon. So they had to prepare themselves. Everyone was there except for Knight Master, Mari and Rufus. Rin had left early as well. It was her job to make dinner that evening.

They practiced until they were starving, which was different for everyone. One by one they left as they got hungry. The Grand Chase never actually ate their dinners together, only on special occasions or when Knight Master forced them.

Outside, Sonia had fallen asleep against the tree. She hadn't realized how tired she was. When she woke up, she saw the setting sun. Dinner didn't cross her mind until she heard her tummy growl. "Oh no, dinner!"

Getting up, Sonia ran to the tent, forgetting the books at the table. Where was the kitchen? Most likely on the first floor. She could smell the food so she followed the aroma. It led her to the hallway on her left, near the entrance. Walking, she saw a door open, halfway down the hall. That's where the smell was coming from.

Sonia ran to it as fast as she could. When she got to the entrance she bowed and apologized. "Sorry im late!"

She waited for a reply…and when no one did, she straightened herself and looked into the room. The only person there was a dark skinned girl with white hair. She had blue eyes and her outfit matched her hair and eyes. It looked like she was trying to hide a smile.

"Um…where's everyone else?" Sonia asked.

"They already ate," the girl replied.

Sonia looked around. The room wasn't too big. There were paintings hanging from the walls of various landscapes. There was a very long table in the center of the room and chairs all around it. In the center of the table was a vase and fruit basket. Around it were platters full…well not completely full…of food. The girl was clearing the table.

"I fell asleep," Sonia told her.

The girl smiled. "It's alright. Here I'll put some food in a plate for you."

"No! It's…alright," Sonia protested. Suddenly she didn't feel like eating. "I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure?"

Sonia nodded. "Yes."

* * *

Sonia had stayed back and helped the girl clear the table. They'd talked a bit, and Sonia had learned that her name was Rin. Now, they walked to the conference hall together. It was upstairs in the same hallway that held Knight Masters quarters. By the looks of it, everyone else was already there, and they were late.

"Will she be mad?" Sonia asked Rin. She was worried about making a bad first impression although she didn't know why.

Rin shook her head. "No, don't worry. Knight Master is very kind."

Sonia breathed a sigh of relief. She opened the door to the conference hall. Inside was a table and everyone was seated around it. At the head of the table was Knight Master. Everyone watched as they entered.

"Sorry we're late," Rin apologized. "We were clearing the table."

Knight Master nodded. "Sit down, you two."

Rin made her way towards her seat. Sonia looked around for an empty one. There was only one left. She sat down. To her right was Sieghart and to her left was a boy with magenta hair that she was not familiar with yet. Sonia felt uncomfortable being a part of the meeting. She was the newbie. She had no idea what was going on and she got a strange vibe that some of them didn't want her there.

Sitting right across from her was that boy she had met earlier by the tree. To his left (from Sonia's perspective) was Arme and to his right was a boy with silver hair. There were no more seats to the left. Everyone else was on the right. She looked around for Jin. The first person she had met. She trusted him the most at the moment.

"Well, it's been decided that were going to Silver Land. We'll leave in 2 days' time. I'll have our ship prepared. I need all of you to help out with the preparations. Rin, you're responsible for food. Arme, I need you to take care of any medical supplies we need. Mari, I want you to build weapons compatible with our ship in case we run into trouble. You never know anymore. I need the demons to create a compass that'll detect any dark magic on the sea and finally I need someone to chart our course," Knight Master said.

_Demons? _Sonia thought. _What did she mean by demons…_

"Who will chart the course?" Arme asked.

"I can do it." A girl in the back stood up. She had blonde hair and green eyes.

Knight Master nodded. "Thank you Lire. I want the rest of you to help the others out as much as you can, alright?"

Everyone nodded their understanding, except for Sonia. "Um. Excuse me but…what about me?" she asked.

"What about you?" Knight Master said.

"I'm supposed to get home, aren't I? Aren't you going to help me do that?"

"Frankly, we have no idea how to get you back home," Knight Master told her. "Even if we did, we'd be hesitant to send you back. Do you know why we're going to Silver Land, Sonia?"

She shook her head.

"We're going to Silver Land so we can get you trained. So that you can know how to properly use your power," Knight Master explained. "We're doing this all for you. You're part of the team now."

"Part…of the team?" Sonia echoed.

"Oh yes I almost forgot," Knight Master continued. "I need someone to explain things to Sonia. Let her know what's going on. Any takers?"

"I'll do it."

The voice came from right behind her. She knew who it was even without turning around. _Oh please, no, _Sonia thought. _Not him! _Turning around, she looked up at Sieghart. He was standing up and smiling down at her. It wasn't a kind smile though. It was more of a hey-look-you're-stuck-with-me-now kind of smirk.

Knight Master got up from her chair and smiled at the group of teenagers. "Good," she smiled. "Let's begin."

.


	11. Chapter 11:Preparations

Chapter Eleven: Preparations

Everyone was asleep. The moon was out and there wasn't the slightest noise to be heard. It was actually kind of maddening. Sonia sat up in her bed.

Knight Master had given her a room in the hallway full of bedrooms. Everyone slept there. Apparently the tents were outside only to confuse anyone that might be lurking around the camp. The hallway was divided into two sections; one for the boys, one for the girls.

She'd been trying to get to sleep, but she just couldn't do it. Getting out of bed, Sonia put on her boots. Amy had given her some more clothing to wear for the next couple of days, including shoes. Right now she was wearing a silky pink shirt with spaghetti straps and matching pajamas. She needed something to do…but what? Then she remembered the books.

Where had she left them? She thought back to the last place she could remember them at. _Oh, that's right, the table, _Sonia thought_._ Yawning, she exited her room.

The hallwa_y _was cold. Outside it would be colder…

She ran down the spiral staircase, skipping every second step to make her departure quicker. Then she continued running to the exit of the tent.

There was a cool breeze blowing outside. The moon was brighter than any she had ever seen, and you could hear the rustling of the leaves. It was spooky, yet soothing at the same time.

She made her way to the big tree. At first she couldn't make out the books on the table, but as her eyes got accustomed to the dark she could see the outline of a large rectangle. Grabbing the books she made her way back to her room. There was no way she was reading outside…

Sonia locked the door to her room and turned on the lights. Hopefully no one would be disturbed. The books were heavy so she carried them to her bed and set them down. She took her boots off and joined the books on the bed.

She arranged the books by the colours of the rainbow. The first one was yellow, its title, Arenas and its Continents . The second one was green. Its title read Earth. The third book was pure black and written in grey on the cover was The Underworld and Elyos. And lastly, the fourth book. It had no title. The cover was brown and it had gold designs sprawled all over it. There was a lock on it.

_Someone must have put it back in the wrong place_, Sonia thought.

Grabbing the brown book, Sonia pulled on the lock, hoping that it had rusted and worn out over time. She had no luck. It wouldn't budge.

Maybe if she used a pin; but she didn't have a pin.

"I really wish I was in MY room…" she said aloud.

Setting the book on her bed, Sonia got up. Maybe if she jumped onto it…no that was dumb. What would that do?

Maybe if she threw it against the wall! No, but she couldn't do that either. It would be too loud.

Maybe she could…ask someone. But what if the book was something important that they didn't want her to see? What if it was a diary!

Sighing, Sonia climbed back onto her bed. Maybe if she burnt the lock it would melt…

As she was thinking of ways to break the lock on the book there was a soft, but firm, knock on the door. Surprised, Sonia hid the book underneath her pillow. "Who is it?"

"It's me…"

Recognizing the voice, Sonia crossed the floor to the door and opened it letting in the person on the other side, and then she closed the door behind them.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Well, im supposed to be taking care of you aren't I? You're light was on in the middle of the night. I thought something might be wrong."

A bit irritated, Sonia jumped onto her bed. "Knight Master never said that. She said you were supposed to tell me things, not take care of me."

"Same thing."

"No its not! Besides there's nothing wrong, I just couldn't get to sleep." Sonia explained.

Standing in the middle of her room, Sieghart starred across the room with sleepy eyes. He was tired, but…he couldn't really sleep that well either, so he had decided to roam the hallways.

"Why are you bothering so much anyway? From what I can remember you didn't really like me the first time we met," Sonia said recalling the first time she had ever stepped into Knight Master's quarters with Jin.

"Well, from what I saw at the beach, you're an idiot. And I don't want you messing things up, so I've decided to be the one that makes sure you don't."

Sonia glared at the tall male in her room. What was this guy's problem? Why was he so annoying...How do you even obtain an attitude so horrible. Tired of talking to Sieghart Sonia lied down and pulled the covers over her head. "Im tired now," she said, closing her eyes.

* * *

The next morning, Sonia woke up later than everyone else. Once she had freshened up, she grabbed the books, except for the one under her pillow, and exited her room into the hallway. As she closed her door Arme was running through the hall.

"Arme?"

"Oh, Sonia, it's you! You're up, that's good. Everyone's preparing for our voyage. We only have two days you know," Arme said.

"Well..um, what should I do?" Sonia asked.

"Hmmm? Oh, well the majority of people are underneath the Great Tree. Go there." Arme said, and then she ran off.

_The Great Tree, _Sonia thought. She made her way down the stairs and outside of the tent. Sonia guessed that the Great Tree was the tree that she had fallen asleep under the previous day, and she was right. There were about 5 people there. As she approached she noticed that Knight Master wasn't part of them.

Sonia stopped in her tracks. Since when had she been so shy? But this was different. Everyone here was different. She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Huh?" Sonia turned around, half surprised and half annoyed. Behind her stood Sieghart.

"Are you planning on helping out or what? Come on, get moving," Sieghart said as he nudged Sonia in the direction of the Great Tree.

Sonia quickly made her way to the tree. Everyone had noticed her and Sieghart approaching and they all stood and watched. Sonia felt more and more nervous as she got closer to them. Why did she feel like she wasn't wanted?

"Sonia, you're awake. That's good."

Sonia looked up to see Lire. She relaxed a little and smiled. "Good morning." There was laughter from behind.

"Good morning? It's the afternoon, you idiot. You missed breakfast AND lunch," Sieghart said.

"What?!" Sonia could feel her face heat up. "Im sorry," she quickly apologized. She mustered up the courage to look at everyone else. She recognized them all, but she wasn't sure what all of their names were. Jin was there though. She smiled at him and he returned her smile.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Good," Sonia replied.

"Alright, enough small talk. Lire, what must we do?" Sieghart asked, although he didn't sound serious about it.

It looked as though Lire was leading everything.

"Alright, now that were all here let's continue. Rin is in the kitchen along with Lime. Lass has gone to help Dio, Rufus, Ley and Zero with the compass. Elesis is with Mari, Amy is with Arme and Ryan will be assisting me. So that leaves Jin, Sieghart, Ronan, Asin and Sonia with nothing to do." Lire looked up from the clipboard she was holding and surveyed the five teenagers standing in front of her. After about a minute of nothing but awkward starring, Lire said something. "I know what you can do! Ronan, Asin and Jin please go and scout the area around us. We don't need at interruptions from the Infected while we're preparing. And Sieghart, like Knight Master said last night, fill Sonia in on…the things she needs to know."

As Lire turned around to face Ryan who had been standing behind her Sonia wondered why Lire had hesitated. The things she needs to know…? What did that mean?

"Alright," Sieghart said. "Come on, let's go!" He began walking in the direction of the forest. Sonia, still hugging her books, followed him from behind.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

If Sieghart had turned around, Sonia would've been able to see the mischievous smirk on his face. "You'll see."

* * *

Knight Master looked out towards the sea. She had left the camp early that morning leaving Lire in charge. There were still some ships at the docks surprisingly. One in particular seemed in almost perfect condition and that was where she was now.

Coming alone hadn't been the smartest idea, but Knight Master had wanted to make sure that everything was perfect when her group arrived. Besides, the ship needed a bit of repair, and now she had two days to do it.

Completely engrossed in the scenery it was a while before she noticed the heavy footsteps coming from the forest to her right. She ducked and peered through a little hole in the side of the ship. She waited until the person those footsteps belonged to was in her sights. She didn't have to wait long.

_The Orc Lord?! _ Knight Master crouched further away. He had brought troops with him as well, but what was he doing here? Then she remembered the incident at Kerrie Beach.

_I must get out of here, _she thought. There was no way she could face him alone. Not only that, but she needed to warn the Grand Chase. She peered through the hole again, but she could not see the Orc Lord any longer.

_Where have they gone? _ She was about to stand up when she heard a small rustle from behind her, and even before she could turn to see the little goblin holding a miniature club, she was knocked out cold.

* * *

"How long will this take..?" Dio asked, for the millionth time. He didn't want to be stuck here working. He would rather be somewhere else.

"We wouldn't have to do this is you had just come back to Elyos with me," Ley said.

"No thank you," Dio said.

"Then shut up," Ley glared.

In the corner, Rufus cleared his throat. "I suggest we get to work. I have other things I need to do as well."

"I found the book," Zero informed the others. He walked over and handed it to Lass. The only person in the room he was actually comfortable around.

The five demons were in the basement of the tent, a room which could only be accessed through the hidden door at the back of the library. They were familiar with the compass Knight Master had asked them to prepare, but none of them knew exactly how to create it. The book Zero was holding though, would tell them how.

He flipped through the pages until he came to one with an image of the compass and its anatomy. "Here it is."

"Hey Zero, where's that loud mouth sword of yours?" Dio asked. Zero usually had it strapped on his back wherever he went, but today it was absent.

"I asked him to leave it in his room today," Ley explained. "Grandark would have been too much of a distraction."

Zero didn't say anything. They were right. Grandark would've been distracting, but he wasn't as horrible as everyone described him as.

"Oh it says here we need a stick full of dark magic to act as the needle of the compass. Wow, the compass is rather large. A meter in both height and width," Ley said.

"A stick full of dark magic?" Rufus asked. "What about Lich's staff? Would that do?"

"Lich? That thing that lives in the Forsaken Barrows?" Dio asked.

"Yes, that." Rufus confirmed.

Ley flipped a couple of pages further into the book. She came to a page about possible objects that could be used for the needle. It didn't say anything in particular. "All it says here is that it needs to be a rod with dark magic. A staff is basically a rod, so I think that'll work."

"Alright then, I'll be there and back by tomorrow. The rest of you just work on the base," Rufus said as he pulled on his leather gloves.

"I'm going with you…" Dio announced.

Rufus sighed. There was no point in arguing with Dio. "Then let's go."

* * *

Sonia didn't think this was right. Sieghart had led her further and further away from the camp, ignoring all of her complaints and threats to turn around and leave. Now she was standing at the mouth of a gorge so deep it made her dizzy.

"Isn't it nice?" Sieghart asked.

Nice?! Sonia felt like she was going to hurl. "Are we allowed to be here?"

"Knight Master doesn't put much restriction on us," Sieghart explained. "So, yes."

Sonia sighed. She was supposed to be learning about this world, but she didn't expect to learn anything from a guy like this. He was lazy, and annoying, and he didn't seem to want to work at all. On their way here, Sonia had tried many times to learn at least something about this world, but all she got was that this isn't Earth. So far, she didn't really like Sieghart. "So…can we work now?" she tired one more time.

Sieghart turned around to look at her. He had been taking in the view and had kind of forgotten that he was supposed to teach Sonia. "What? Oh yeah…sure. Let's just find a nice place to sit."

_Great, more stalling,_ Sonia thought. "A nice place to sit? At a gorge?" She followed Sieghart as he quickly maneuvered around the rocks. It was hard to keep up with him. He was so tall and she was so…short. "HEY WAIT UP!"

Sieghart turned around to see Sonia about ten meters behind him trying to make her way over a rock while gripping on to three books. He laughed. "Hurry up, shrimp."

"Huh? What?" Sonia looked up. Wrong move. She slipped and instead of gracefully stepping over the rock like she had planned, she rolled over it and almost landed face first. "Ow.."

Sieghart ran to where she was and crouched beside her. "You alright?"

Sonia nodded. She wasn't bleeding or anything, but she was sure she was going to have a couple of bruises.

Sieghart collected the books and continued walking. "Come on, and be more careful."

Sonia followed Sieghart once more until he finally stopped.

"Here it is," he said. "The perfect spot."

"This?" Sonia asked.

"Yup."

The "perfect spot" was a small cave like hole located in the wall of the gorge. To get to it, you had to pull yourself up, but in order to do that, you needed to be able to reach the ledge, which of course Sieghart could…but Sonia couldn't.

"Oh, it looks like you're too short," Sieghart said. "Here, ill lift you."

"What?!" Sonia backed away. "No, it's ok I can-" but before she could refuse, Sieghart grabbed her bare arms and lifted her up. In a second, he had set her down on the edge of the ledge, but that was enough for the adaption.

Sonia looked down at Sieghart with clouded eyes. He noticed something wrong with her right away. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"It…it hurts…" Sonia breathed, and that's all she could say before she blacked out.

* * *

_She was dreaming. She could tell, because her dream was a story one of her teachers had read to her over and over again. Snow White. In her dream, she was Snow White. She was sleeping and her prince had just entered. He was tall and had dark hair, but she couldn't see his face properly. Although she was presumably "dead" and her eyes were closed she could see everything that was going on. As her prince walked closer and closer, her heart started beating faster. Now he was on top of her, and he leaned lower and gave her a light kiss. Opening her eyes, she smiled, but it instantly disappeared. "Hi," her prince said with a sly grin._

* * *

Sonia quickly sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Sieghart!" Her face was red, she could feel it, and she was sweating. What kind of dream was that?! She turned around and tried to stand up, but her head hit the top of the cave.

"Be careful," Sieghart said again. He decided not to ask her why she was blushing so much.

Sonia sat down and looked around. They were in the "perfect spot." The books were in a corner and Sieghart was leaning sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. "You weren't past out for as long as the last time you adapted," he said.

"What?" Sonia looked down at herself. Instead of the skirt she had put on that morning, she had on dark pants and boots that laced up almost to her knees. Her shirt was skin tight, something that she didn't really like but there was a dark purple vest that went over it. There were also a lot of straps and buckles that Sonia was sure were only there for the look. On her hands were fingerless leather gloves and when she looked at her left inner forearm there was a deep purple glowing mark alongside a pink one, which was not glowing.

Seeing the marks on Sonia's arm, Sieghart crawled closer to Sonia. "I think every time you adapt to one of us we leave a mark on you," he smiled. "See that, the purple ones my mark. I guess the pink one is Amy's."

Sonia could feel her head throb. She looked at Sieghart. "How long was I out?"

"Only a couple of minutes," he replied.

"Oh that's it?"

"Yup."

"Then can you tell me about this world now?"

"In a bit."

Sonia felt her anger flare up. Sieghart, who was now leaning against the rock wall with his eyes closed, was such an arrogant person. Sonia crawled towards him and hit him on the head.

He opened his eyes, surprised at the blow. "What was that for?!"

"Teach me." Sonia demanded.

Sieghart sighed. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

Sonia and Sieghart had spent that entire afternoon at the gorge. Once they'd gotten started, they'd both completely lost track of time. Sieghart hadn't realized how much Sonia didn't know. Sonia hadn't realized how much there was that she didn't know. She learned that Earth was diagonal from this world which was called Arenas, and that parallel to Arenas was the Underworld; the land of the dead, but that there's also living species there, and that there's a completely separate dimension called Elyos.

Also, she learned that there is a war taking place on Arenas and that there are many dark forces on Arenas taking over and trying to get to Earth. And that Sieghart and the rest of the teenagers are part of a special team assembled by the Queen of Serdin called the Grand Chase and that their mission is to fight against all evil.

Lastly she learned that there were reporting's of portals that had been opening in the Underworld and Elyos connecting them to Arenas, and that they suspect that that is how Sonia ended up on Aernas as well; a portal.

"Well, you satisfied now?" Sieghart asked.

Sonia blinked. She was trying to make sense of everything she had just heard. It all sounded so surreal. She gave Sieghart a faint nod in reply to his question.

"Good. We should get going," he said as he jumped down from the ledge.

Sonia didn't move. She had one last question to ask, but she wasn't sure how to properly word it. "Do you…not want me here…?" _Geez that sounded pathetic._

Sieghart looked up. "Hmm? What do you mean?"

"Well…"Sonia looked down at her hands. "Would you have liked it better if I had never come here with Jin?"

Sieghart tried to understand what she was asking. He knew not everyone completely trusted her yet and that she was suspected as being a spy by some of the members, but that didn't mean they wanted her gone. "You're our last bit of hope for this war you know. You have something special even though no one really knows what it is yet. Even if no one wanted you here, we all need you here."

Surprised at his answer, Sonia looked away from her hands. "Reaaaaally?"

Sieghart hid a small smile. "Yes, really. Now come one. We need to get back." He turned around as Sonia was about to jump down from the ledge. "Oh, and the next time you adapt to someone, unless you want them to see your underwear, I suggest you don't fall upside down onto their shoulders with a skirt on."


	12. Chapter 12: The Keys

Chapter Twelve: The Keys

"So, you've adapted to Sieghart now?"  
It had taken them a while to get back to the camp and by the time they had, everyone had already begun eating dinner.  
Sonia nodded. Everyone was surprised to hear that Sonia had only passed out for a couple of minutes.  
"I was wondering," Sonia said," could I maybe adapt to all of you at the same time?" She was finally beginning to except her "power" even though she didn't really know what it meant.  
Arme thought about it for a bit. "No, that would be too dangerous. We better not risk it."  
"Oh, ok," Sonia agreed.  
Somehow, Lire had convinced everyone to eat together. She'd thought it would be a good way for Sonia to get to know everyone. They hadn't even properly gone through the introductions since Sonia had arrived. Not that they had the time, not with so much happening.  
"Listen up everybody! I have an announcement," Lire said, from the head of the table.  
"Wait…where's Knight Master?" Jin asked.  
"She went to the docks, on her own, to check up on our transportation," Lire replied.  
"On her own? Is that even safe?" Ronan asked.  
"Oh come on, its Knight Master, she can defiantly take care of herself," Elesis reassured him.  
"Ahem, back to what I was saying," Lire said, sounding a bit annoyed, "tomorrow is our last day to prepare. I don't want anything done last minute. It's very important that we get to Silverland ON TIME. Before Knight Master left she'd told me that she had managed to contact the adaptologist. She said, starting from the day after tomorrow we have exactly 48 hours to sail across the ocean, dock in Silverland, find the adaptologist and get all the information we need."  
"Why is she in such a rush…?" Ley asked, from her seat at the table.  
"Well, we don't know what exactly the situation in Silverland is. Maybe she's decided she wants to leave. Silverland is infected with the Infected too you know, but let's not worry about that right now. Instead focus on completing your tasks,. Now please, continue," Lire suggested.  
Lire took her seat at the head of the table where Knight Master usually was. Surprisingly, Ryan took a seat beside her.  
"What are those two up too? They're always together…"  
Sonia jumped. "What are you doing?!"  
Sieghart laughed. "Oh, did I scare you? Sorry, but hey, let's introduce you to everyone properly."  
"Intro…duce?" Sonia watched as Sieghart walked to the other side of the table. She silently followed him from behind. She'd never been good at meeting people. She'd always make an odd first impression, but Sonia had gotten used to her mistakes.  
Sieghart was standing at the opposite end of the table. Seated there were two people. "This," Sieghart said," is my granddaughter Elesis and her boyfriend, Ronan."  
Sitting beside each other on the right side of the table was a red haired girl, although her hair was nowhere near as red as Jin's, and a boy with royal blue hair.  
"He's not my boyfri-"  
"Shut up," Sieghart interrupted Elesis.  
Sonia was trying to make sense of what she had just heard. "Grand….daughter?!"  
"Mhmm! He's really old!" Elesis smiled.  
Sieghart sighed. "It's a long story. A 14A story," he put in, since he wasn't too sure how old Sonia really was.  
"…I'm 15 though," Sonia told him.  
"Really? You look…like a little kid," Sieghart said. He continued his way up the right side of the table.  
"Stupid baby face…" Sonia muttered to herself.  
"This is Ley and Zero. They're both demons," Sieghart said.  
"Demons?" Sonia asked. It was true they didn't look like humans, but they weren't what she expected demons to be either.  
"Hello," Ley said.  
"Oh…hello," Sonia responded shyly.  
"Yes, they're demons," Sieghart told her. "There's actually two more. Dio, the kid with purplish skin and Rufus, the golden haired bounty hunter.  
Sonia thought back to when she had accidently fallen asleep, underneath the Great Tree. So that boy had been Rufus?  
"Forgetting someone?"  
Sonia looked at Zero. It seemed as though he had said something, but she hadn't seen his lips move. She couldn't even tell anything from his eyes because they were covered by an odd cloth.  
"Oh, right…That talking sword on his back," Sieghart said, pointing to Zero," is Grandark."  
Sonia's eyes widened. "You have a talking sword?!" she asked Zero, clearly amazed.  
He nodded.  
"Ok, moving on…" Sieghart again walked up the right side. "These are the two book worms. Mari and Arme. You already know Arme fairly well, so…here's Mari."  
She gave Sonia a little wave. Sonia smiled and waved back. Kind of being a book worm herself, she felt she'd get along really well with her.  
"Alright… next we have the heads of the table, Lire and Ryan," Sieghart said. "Lire's an elf, so is Ryan."  
"What?" Sonia was so confused. Everyone here was so different from each other, and not all of them were human either!  
"How are you?" Lire asked.  
"Oh, Im good, thanks for asking," Sonia replied.  
"Nice to meet you," Ryan said.  
Sonia smiled. "Nice to meet you too."  
"Well, that was oddly formal," Sieghart muttered. "Now, for the left side of the table!"  
Looking to where Sieghart had referred too, Sonia saw three girls. Two she was familiar with and one she didn't really know.  
"This is Rin, Lime and Amy," Sieghart told her.  
Sonia smiled to herself. Lime? She had lime colored hair too! "Hi," Sonia said.  
"Rin here, is a goddess, the other two are humans so there's nothing too special about them," Sieghart explained.  
Sonia didn't know what to say.  
Sieghart noticed how amazed she was.  
"Oh calm down," he said. "There's still more people."  
Sonia composed herself and then followed Sieghart down the table. She saw Jin.  
"Hey, how've you been?" he asked.  
"Jin!" Sonia said. She hadn't seen him all day long. It was nice to finally see him. "Good," she said, in reply to his question. "I think."  
Jin laughed. "Don't worry, everything will clear up soon. I know what it's like for everything to change so drastically."  
"Stop wasting our time Jin," Sieghart said. "Sonia, come on."  
As she left Jin behind, Sonia wondered what he had meant by what he had said. She would need to go talk to him later.  
Sitting beside Jin was a boy with red eyes and light purple hair.  
"This is Asin," Sieghart informed her. "And a wanna-be Jin."  
"I'm not a wanna-be Jin," Asin defended himself.  
Sonia was beginning to notice that Sieghart was a bit on the rude side when he acknowledged people.  
The last person, was a silver haired boy with blue eyes.  
"Lass, Sonia. Sonia, Lass," Sieghart introduced. "He's an assassin."  
"An assassin? Like a contract killer?" Sonia asked.  
Lass shook his head. "No, not like that. I'm not like Rufus."  
Rufus, Sonia thought. That's right! Sieghart had called him a bounty hunter.  
"Well, that's the last of them," Sieghart said. He stretched his arms and started making his way back to his seat. "Come on now! It's time to eat!"

* * *

Dio watched as Rufus shot two zombie orcs from behind the bushes. As much as he hated admitting it, Rufus was an excellent killer.  
"Where do you think he's hiding?" Rufus asked, still not taking his eyes off of the two dead orcs in front of him. He and Dio had been searching for the Lich all afternoon and they still hadn't caught a glimpse of him.  
"Deeper," Dio replied.  
"We're already really deep," Rufus replied.  
"Then he must be around…"  
It was already 12:00 am. They hadn't planned to take this long to find the Lich. Neither of them would be getting any sleep that night. They still needed to get back to the camp as well, in time for tomorrow.  
"Shh, did you hear that?" Rufus asked.  
Dio had heard" that". It was a strange rustling from the ground. It was familiar, but he couldn't quite remember what it was. Then he recognized it.  
"JUMP!"  
Rufus and Dio both leaped into the ait as a bunch of thorned vines shot up from the ground and tried to grab at the two boys feet. Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared.  
"He's nearby," Rufus noted.  
"They came from that direction!" Dio said, pointing to his left.  
"Come one then," Rufus said as he ran in the direction Dio had pointed out.  
Dio sighed. He hated running after Rufus.

* * *

They'd found him. The Lich. He was unaware that Dio and Rufus were nearby which gave them the perfect opportunity for a surprise attack, except that's not what they were planning on doing.  
"Killing him would take way to long," Rufus said. "Let's just steal the staff."  
"You want to spare him?" Dio asked.  
"He's not even that much of a threat, now come on, he's distracted." Rufus got up from behind the boulder they had been hiding behind.  
After the attack earlier it hadn't taken them long to find the Lich. They'd followed him around for a couple of minutes. It was clear that he was looking for them, but when he hadn't found them he'd come back here. Now, with his guard down, Rufus crept to the other side of the boulder.  
The Lich had set his staff down, for no apparent reason, and at that moment he had his back turned towards them.  
Dio watched as Rufus creeped across the opening towards the staff. It was scary how he made no apparent sound the entire way. When he reached the staff, Rufus singled to Dio to quietly back away, but there was something bothering Dio. He didn't feel right leaving the Lich alive. Even though Rufus had said he wasn't a threat, it still felt wrong to him.  
The Lich, who had been distracted by his own work, heard something behind him. There was something going on, but when he turned around he saw nothing, except for the fact that his staff was missing...  
Rufus had sensed that the Lich was about to turn around and hidden behind a nearby bush. Great, Rufus thought, he knows we're here now. He couldn't help but feel angry at Dio. He had messed everything up...didn't he know they had no time for this?!  
From the other side of the opening, Dio watched as the Lich got closer and closer to where Rufus was hiding. Maybe he had forgotten there were two of them...but just as Dio was finishing up that thought, a set of vines shot up from the ground and wrapped themselves around him.  
The Lich made his way towards Dio as he tried to twist out of the grip of the vines. The thorns were slowly puncturing his skin and it kind of hurt.  
When the Lich had his full attention on Dio, Rufus took his chance and shot at the wizards back. The Lich, taken by surprised turned around only to be hit by more bullets that had already been shot. The surprise attack by Rufus had caused the Lich's grip on the vines to weaken which allowed Dio to break through them. Angered he charged at the Lich and jumped on to his back, covering its eyes with his hands. Rufus then charged forward with the Lich's staff and stabbed it through its heart...or at least where its heart should've been. Either way, the Lich fell to the ground with Dio on top of it and slowly died.  
"What's that?" Dio asked. He was referring to a piece of parchment sticking out of the Lich's robe.  
Rufus bent down and picked it up. "I don't know," he replied. He crumpled it into one of the pockets on his jacket. They didn't have time to read it here. "Let's get back."

* * *

A brand new day, and Sonia felt terrible. She hadn't been able to sleep that night at all. Why? She didn't really know. As she had been getting ready for the day that morning though, she'd found the brown book hidden under her pillow.

She had woken up later than everyone else again that day. She hoped that wouldn't become a routine or anything. That would just make her look bad.

Another day of preparations. That was all that was on Sonia's mind. Would she have to spend today with Sieghart too? Sonia sighed. That was not how she wanted to spend her day…but what else could she do? Then, remembering the book under her pillow, Sonia ran back to her room.

There was a keyhole on it right? If she could find that key, she'd be able to open it and read what was inside. How hard could it be to find the key? It had to be around somewhere, and if someone caught her snooping around she could just say she was exploring. All she had to do was stay out of Sieghart's sight.

Closing the door, and making sure it was locked, Sonia walked to her bed and grabbed the book. She tried to look around for some sort of bag she could put it in so no one would see her carrying it around. She was in luck. At the very back of her closet had been a plain white fabric bag that she could put the book in.

Now she was ready. There was only one thing she didn't know; where to start.

_Maybe I should try the library_, Sonia thought.

As she was running down the main stairs for the second time that day, Sonia noticed Sieghart entering the tent. Most likely to wake her up. She stopped in her tracks and made her way up the stairs again. Hopefully he hadn't seen her. It hadn't seemed like he had.

She ran into the medical hall. He wouldn't come looking for her there. Sonia ran to the end of the hall and entered a random room. It ended up being the room she had been in when she had first come here. It felt strange standing in it again.

She waited awhile until she was sure Sieghart would've left then crept back into the hallway. She couldn't hear any footsteps of any sort so she continued further up the hallway. When she got to the beginning she looked out just in case. There was no one there. Good.

This time Sonia was a little more careful as she made her way to the library. She didn't encounter anyone though. As she stood in front of the large library door, Sonia felt her heart beating faster. Was she really that excited?

"What're you doing…"

_Oh no… _As she turned around, Sonia expected to see Sieghart, and she knew that if it was him, all her plans for the day would've been ruined, but it wasn't him. It was the two demons he had told her about at dinner that previous night. The two that had been absent; Dio and Rufus.

"Uhmmm…going to the library," Sonia told them.

"What's taking you so long," Dio asked.

"Uhmm, well I was going to go in to ask Mari if she knew where the keys were…" Sonia said.

"The keys to what...?" Rufus asked.

"The keys to my bedroom…I accidently locked myself out," Sonia explained

They both exchanged glances and then pushed past Sonia.

_Well that was awfully rude, _Sonia thought. But they seemed like they were in a rush, so she didn't say much about it.

Sonia too entered the library, just in time to see the demons turn into a row of shelves. Forgetting her true purpose, Sonia silently followed them. She ended up tailing them to the very end of the library, which had taken a while to get too, and Sonia was surprised to see both of them walk through a door set in the wall.

Once they had completely disappeared, Sonia ran to the door and pulled at the handle. It wasn't locked. On the other side was a downwards staircase. There was no lighting so there was no telling how far down it went. Sonia felt for any sort of handrail but there was none. Just the wall.

_I guess that'll have to do…_Sonia thought.

She slowly made her way down the stairs with her hand brushing against the wall to reassure her that she wasn't just walking in dead space. It was so dark she couldn't even see her hand in front of her face.

Sonia was beginning to get worried. She'd been walking for what seemed like a really long time and there still wasn't an end. What if she died in here?! But just as she was about to completely lose it; Sonia glimpsed the thinnest ray of light.

_FINALLY!_

She could hear voices now. There were mostly male, but she was positive she'd heard a female in there somewhere. Should she make herself known?

She took a deep breath and walked down the last few steps into a medium sized room. It looked somewhat like a scientist lab mixed with a storage room. It was a mess! But there was something that caught Sonia's eyes right away. A ring of keys hanging on the left wall…

"Looks like we have company…"

Sonia diverted her attention to the figures in the room. There were five of them standing in the middle of the room around a large metal object. Instantly she regretted coming down there.

She recognized them, but they didn't look friendly. Most likely she had interrupted them and they were annoyed with her. She wanted to back away, but she also wanted the keys. There was no way she was leaving here without them because there was no way Sonia was ever returning here all alone.

Sonia was aware of the bag she was carrying and tried hiding it behind her. She realized she didn't need to because no one was really paying attention to it. "Um…Im sorry I've kind of gotten lost," she told them.

Even speaking to them was hard for her. Was it because she had been told they were demons? But there was no way she was going to let them know they frightened her…even if it was just a little bit. She decided to take the plunge. "Can I stay here? I have nothing else to do and I won't bother you at all…"

The female, which Sonia remembered as Ley, shrugged. "Do whatever you like, just don't touch anything."

Sonia breathed out. She hadn't realized she had been holding her breath. "Thank you."

She couldn't just grab the keys. That would be too obvious. She needed a distraction of some sort…but what? The only thing she could think of was to create some sort of chaos. She needed to break something…something valuable…something big. Looking around the room, Sonia saw nothing but tiny bottles of potions and instruments that she didn't recognize. To the far right though, there was a set of pipes which Sonia guessed had water running through them. At least she hoped they had water running through them…

She knew what she needed to do.

No one was paying any attention to her. They were all too busy with the compass. Sonia quickly made her way to the pipes. They were fastened with bolts and were very sturdy. She didn't think she was strong enough to undo those. Also that might take a little too long. She needed something to cut straight through the pipe right away.

There was nothing. Sonia was beginning to lose hope and the demons were beginning to get a little bit suspicious. Just when she was about to give up, Sonia noticed something strange. At one point on the pipe there was a little dent. It was near a bolt and looked like a lot of pressure had been packed in there over time. Weather it was water or gas of some sort a good kick should defiantly set it off…right?

Sonia took a deep breath. This would either work or make her look like an idiot, but she had to do it. She readied herself and took a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. No one was. This was her chance.

She swung her leg back and hit the pipe as hard as she could. At first nothing happened. There was only a really loud clang. She had made the dent deeper, but she hadn't broken the pipe. Getting worried, Sonia turned around to see five surprised faces looking in her direction. "Umm, sorry, I tripped," she said.

"Get out of the way, it's gonna blow."

A boy with magenta hair came running towards her which Sonia remembered Sieghart telling her was Dio. He pushed her out of the way and just as he did the pipe burst and water came shooting out of it.

"Help me get the compass out of here!" Ley yelled at the other demons.

_Well that went kind of as expected, _Sonia thought.

She watched as Dio tried to stop the leak and the others pushed the heavy compass towards the door. They were all occupied.

Quickly she ran to the other side of the room and grabbed the keys. She had done it. But now she was worried about how she had done it. What was going to happen to her now?

Dio turned around and shook his head. "I can't do it. The waters coming out at too high a pressure. Im gonna have to shut off the whole water supply."

"Just do what you need to do," Ley told him.

She was irritated and Sonia could tell. Great, she had just angered the people she was most afraid of, but she had the keys. And that's all that mattered.


	13. Chapter 13: Disappearance

Chapter Thirteen: Disappearance

Now thanks to Sonia everyone was standing around outside with nothing to do. Dio hadn't actually known how to shut the water supply off so quite a bit of the tent had ended up being flooded. The basement and library all the way to the kitchens. And it was all Sonia's fault.

"Where have you been?!"

Sonia turned around to see an angry Sieghart approaching her from behind.

"You're alone for a couple of hours and you drown our home?!"

"Sieghart, give her a break. There's no use arguing over this. What's done is done," Lire said.

Sonia was surprised she could stay so calm at a time like this. Now she understood why Knight Master had left her in charge.

"Im sorry," Sonia said, pathetically," I didn't mean to…" And that was the truth. Though she had planned on breaking the pipes, she hadn't thought that the whole tent would've ended up flooded.

"Then what do we do now?" Sieghart asked Lire, completely ignoring Sonia's apology.

Lire turned towards everyone so they all could hear. "Let's finish up what we can and then head for the docks. There's no point staying here if we can't do anything."

"We managed to drag the compass out here, but it's full of water and won't be of any help," Rufus informed Lire.

"The foods all gone," Rin said. "We'll just have to collect anything we can find along the way."

"No killing animals," Ryan warned Rin.

She nodded. "Don't worry."

"There won't be any new machinery for the ships, if we run into trouble we'll have to deal with them the old fashioned way," Mari said.

"I managed to drag out a few medical supplies with me so we still have those," Arme said with a smile. She was trying to stay positive.

Lire sighed. They had lost so much. But they couldn't give up. "I finished drawing up our course. We can still do this," she said, trying to encourage the whole team.

Sonia stood off to one side watching everyone as they planned out how everything would go from here on out. No one paid any attention to her. Everyone was too irritated with her. Sonia could tell no one wanted her around at that moment. But they were still content on getting to Silver Land, and wasn't the only reason they were going there for her? Sonia couldn't give up. She wouldn't break down either. She needed to find a way to make it up to everyone.

* * *

"You can't possibly think we can pull this off," Ley said. She and Lire had been arguing the whole afternoon.

"We have too," Lire told her. "If we don't, we're in big trouble."

"What if we run out of food? What if we don't find any in the first place? And when we run into trouble? What do we do then?!" Ley explained.

"Do you really not have any faith in yourself?" Lire asked.

"She's right. We're not prepared at all for this," Elesis said.

"We've done things like this before," Lire pleaded.

"No we haven't…" Sieghart said.

Lire sighed. She hadn't realized how stressful being in charge could be. "Well what do you want me to do? Im trying to make this work so please don't make this any harder than it already is."

Everyone exchanged glances. They knew Lire was right, and they knew nothing would change if they kept arguing like this.

"Alright," Sieghart said. "When do we leave?"

* * *

Sonia sat under the Great Tree where she had taken refuge for the day. She hadn't tried opening the book yet. Every time she looked at it she was filled with a feeling of guilt.

She had heard around the camp that they would leave that evening under the blanket of night. No one would be able to see them that way. She didn't know they complete details though.

She had been sitting there for what seemed like ages to her. Sonia had been in trouble before and she had let others down before, but this time she had really messed up. No one approached her all day, so Sonia was surprised when she saw Dio walking towards her.

At first he didn't say anything. He just looked down at Sonia, and she began to feel a little scared, but then he said something.

"If you wanted those keys so badly, you could've just asked."

Sonia gasped. What? How did he know!?

"And that book you're carrying around, I think it's best if you don't read it. There's a reason there's a lock on it you know..."

"How do you know?" Sonia asked.

"You didn't do much to hide it…I won't tell anybody" Dio told her. "But you sure paid a large price for something so small."

"That's not making me feel any better," Sonia told him.

"I wasn't trying to."

Sonia looked up into his cold eyes. She was angered by his attitude, but she guessed it was something she deserved. "Well, I know it doesn't mean too much, but I'm sorry."

"It doesn't mean anything." And with that, he turned around and left.

* * *

There was something strange about the night. It was tense and on the lookout, like something horrible would happen any second. At least Sonia had thought it was the night. In reality it was only everyone else, keeping a close watch on her, making sure she didn't cause any more trouble. Sonia was getting kind of tired of it, but she didn't say anything.

They were all silently creeping through the forest. Rin was carrying a basket and filling it up with anything edible she could find. There were a lot of little bugs around and Sonia was getting a bit annoyed with them trying to bite her every second. She was going to suggest catching the bugs and eating them as revenge, but then she realized that was just plain gross and that Ryan would most likely not agree with that.

"How far away are the docks?" Sonia asked.

She hadn't expected to get an answer and she didn't. It seemed like everyone had decided that Sonia didn't need to know any details. Sonia found their behavior a bit childish.

She stopped and looked around for Sieghart. He was supposed to tell her everything wasn't he? She spotted him near the back of the group and made her way to him.

"Sieghart?"

"What do you want."

"How far are the docks?"

"That doesn't matter."

Sonia sighed. Well he was a lot of help.

"2 hours away."

Sonia turned in the direction of the voice. It had come from Lime, the girl with the lime coloured hair.

"Oh, Thank you," Sonia said.

Two hours. That was a really long time. Sonia was beginning to get tired. She had never been able to pull off an all nighter. Or stay up past 12. Sleep always got to her before sunrise.

* * *

Sonia didn't know when she had fallen asleep, but when she woke up she was on the shore of a beach. She was lying on the sand out of the sun. When she sat up, she could see the docks and a big magnificent ship.

It was huge. There were three sails and a bird's nest from what Sonia could tell. There was no name carved on the ship. Maybe it was on the other side, but there were intricate designs along the edges.

Sonia could see the little shapes of the Grand Chase moving around on the ship, but something didn't seem right to her. There was something wrong.

Sonia rubbed her eyes to get rid of any puffiness from her sleep and then ran to the ship. As she got closer she could hear a bit of panic in their voices. Had something gone wrong? Was it her fault again? No, she had been sleeping.

Sonia ran up the little plank that connected the ship to the dock. Not everyone was on the ship. There were only about 4 people. Lire, Ryan, Arme and Lass.

"What's going on?" Sonia asked.

"Knight Master's missing," Arme told her.

Sonia couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But I thought she was going to be on the ship."

"She's not, and we have no idea where she might be," Lire said. "We searched the whole ship, now the others have gone to search the forest."

"We need to get going soon though," Ryan said. "At this rate we won't make it to the Adaptologist in time."

Lire sighed. "I know. But Knight Master…"

"Hey, I found something…get over here."

They all turned towards Lass who was leaning over the side of the ship.

"What is it," Ryan asked.

"There was a ship here. Yesterday. You can tell by the way the docks been ripped apart. Whoever did this has no idea how to sail."

"Then it couldn't have been Knight Master," Lire said.

"I don't like this," Arme said. "You don't think Knight Master was abducted or anything, do you?"

"That's a possibility," Ryan said.

"Get everyone else," Lire ordered. "Get them back right now!"

* * *

It didn't take long for everyone to return. Lass and Ryan had gone into the forest and gathered everyone up. No one had had any luck finding Knight Master.

"You think she was kidnapped?" Jin asked.

Lire nodded. "But who would do that?"

Sonia leaned over the edge of the ship, examining what Lass had shown all of them. Lass' theory was a good one, but for some reason it didn't look like the dock had been broken by a departing ship. The damage was too little for that. A ship is huge. To her it looked like more of a struggle. It wouldn't take much to damage the docks. They were old and weak. If someone weighed enough, a simple jump might've even broken the edge of the docks.

As everyone was trying to figure out whether they should leave or not, Sonia noticed something moving around in the bushes of the forest. Somehow it looked familiar to her. It was small, and an odd shape and it almost blended in with the greenery perfectly.

Sonia looked over her shoulders at the others. They were busy. None of them would notice if she slipped off of the ship and went over to check. But just in case she needed a weapon of some sort.

Sonia put down the bag with the book and casually walked over to the rest of the Grand Chase. To adapt she needed to touch someone's bare skin. The only weapon she had used so far was Amy's. Looking around, Sonia saw Amy standing beside Lire near the middle. People would see her adapt to her.

The person closest to the edge was Jin. Sonia remembered the pain she went through every time she adapted to someone. _Get over it, _she told herself. She had to do this. This was the only way she could think of to make up for flooding their home.

She silently walked passed Jin and as she did she lightly touched his hand. He didn't notice, which was exactly what Sonia wanted. This time though, she didn't feel any pain at all. She quickly ran down the plank and onto the beach then examined herself. There wasn't any sort of weapon in her hand. Just leather fingerless gloves from what she could tell. Did Jin really fight with his bare hands?

Sonia sighed. This was not what she had been planning on, but she would have to do with what she got. Running into the forest to hide herself from anyone's sight, Sonia crept towards the location she had thought she'd seen movement. As she got closer she began to hear a strange snickering sound. Almost like laughter, but a little distorted.

She crouched lower to the ground until she was almost crawling. There was something in front of her. She looked over the bush to see two goblins, both holding little rocks in their hands, watching the ship and laughing. _What the hell,_ Sonia thought. What were the goblins doing here?

Sneaking up behind them, Sonia accidently stepped on a stick. It broke, making the slightest cracking noise, but that was enough for the goblins. They turned around; ready to throw the rocks at whoever it was behind them. Whether it was instinct or something else, Sonia brought her hands together above her head and created a fist with both of her hands. Then she quickly hit both of the tiny goblins on the head, knocking both of them unconscious.

Sonia smiled at her own work. It felt good. Maybe she could get used to this.

There was rustling behind her. Sonia turned around to see one of the bigger goblins. So there was more. Slowly Sonia began to connect the dots. They had taken Knight Master! It was their revenge! But where was their leader?

* * *

They had finally come to a conclusion. Knight Master mattered too much to them for them to just leave without her. They would not leave for Silver Land until they found her.

"Doesn't this make Sonia's pretty much useless to us now?" Sieghart asked.

Lire shook her head in disagreement. "No, and you know it. That's just your anger speaking. By the way, where is Sonia…?"

Arme came running over to Lire. "You need to see this."

Lire was confused. "See what?" But when Arme pointed across the beach to the little figures struggling in the sand, it all made sense.

"What is she doing?!" Sieghart unsheathed his sword ready to go after Sonia, but Arme held him back.

"We have bigger problems," she said.

And she was right, because coming right towards them was a ship. Two times bigger than the size of the ship the Grand Chase stood on right now. Better equipped too, but that wasn't what frightened them. What frightened them was the rope that hung off of the side of the ship, and tied to the very end of the rope; the limp figure of Knight Master.


	14. Chapter 14: Death

Chapter Fourteen: Death

Sonia stood in front of six dead goblins. She had no idea how she had done it or what she had done, but there was one thing she knew for sure. It was fun; and that scared her.

Behind her, Sonia heard the shouts of the rest of the Grand Chase. She turned to see two ships out at sea; one which she did not recognize and the other which she had been standing on herself not too long ago. They were going in for a battle. But their ship was not equipped! Panicking, Sonia ran towards the sea, and then she remembered something very important. SHE COULDN'T SWIM!

Sonia didn't want to miss out on anything. This was the only way to prove that she wasn't worthless to the others and make up for her mistake. _Think Sonia, think!_ _You are an adaptor! _She told herself, although she didn't really know how important that was._ Letting something like this get in your way is pathetic._

She looked out to sea once more. That's right…she was an adaptor. And she had adapted to a total of three people. Right now she was adapted to Jin…so if Jin could swim she should be able to swim as well…right? Although she didn't know for sure if that's how adapting worked, or if Jin knew how to swim, she had to try.

It was a gamble. Sonia took one step into the water. She either floated or she drowned. She took another step. Sonia stiffened. But what if she died? Was she ready to die? _Death by water, _Sonia thought. And a preventable death too. If only she had learned how to swim!

Sonia shook all thoughts out of her head. It was now or never.

She looked up at the two ships one more time for motivation, before she plunged into the water.

* * *

"They're getting ready to fire!" Rufus informed them from the birds nest. He was using binoculars and he could clearly see the Orcs and goblins on board. They were ugly little things.

Below, the others were preparing themselves. Since they had no machinery of any sort installed on their ship they had to cross over onto the enemy ship and attack from the inside.

Lire perched on top of a pile of crates and whistled; a signal to alert the others to listen up. "Alright everybody, there are three things we need to get done. How we accomplish them and what we do accomplish them do not matter. Not this time. First, we get Knight Master. That is our priority. Then, we secure the ship and steal it for ourselves. This ship isn't going to last us, especially with their cannons so try not to cause to much damage on the other ship. And finally, we get rid of that Orc Lord for good. "

Everyone nodded their agreement, and even if someone did have any arguments they did not say them. There was no time.

"They're close!" Rufus yelled down to them. "We can reach them if we use a launch pad!"

Lire looked over at Mari who was just finishing up installing a launch pad near the edge of the ship. It was designed to fling anyone who jumped onto it forward and up. It could be very dangerous, especially if you weren't trained to land correctly.

Mari nodded at Lire to signal that it was ready for use. Lire, forcing herself to smile, turned towards the others. "It's time." Lire made her way to the launch pad with everyone else behind her. "We have to do this one by one."

"Wait, hold up…You want me to jump on that thing and let it fling me hundreds of feet into the air…No, I don't think so," Ronan said, backing away.

From behind him, Elesis pushed him towards the launch pad, laughing. "Then you'll be the first to go." She gave him one last shove and in seconds he was flying above them, screaming like a little girl. "I never knew he was afraid of heights…" Elesis said.

Smiling she jumped onto the launch pad, and flung herself towards Ronan. She caught his arm mid-flight and they landed on the Orc Lord's ship together.

"I always knew they were a couple," Sieghart said.

"That doesn't prove they're a couple."

Sieghart turned around to see Dio. They were always arguing, but recently they hadn't seen much of each other.

Sieghart narrowed his eyes into a glare. "Shut up."

Dio smiled. It was so easy to get on his nerves. "Alright, I'll go next," he said.

And just like that, one by one, the Grand Chase flung themselves into the air, each landing on the opposing ship, but not all gracefully.

* * *

From the other ship, the Orc Lord was surprised to see figures falling from the sky onto his ship. So these were the humans that had slaughtered his troops? Smiling to himself, if you could call it a smile, the Orc Lord spoke to his second in command in that strange language all goblins spoke. He had a plan, and now it was time to execute it.

Nodding his understanding, his second in command made his way to the main deck. He was going to enjoy this.

* * *

"Pull harder!" Elesis yelled at the others behind her as she yanked at the rope that Knight Master dangled from. Behind her, Rin, Mari, Arme and Lire were all trying to pull Knight Master back on deck. The goblins had tied weights to her so that she couldn't be easily pulled up and on top of that Knight Master's armor had never been very light either.

"We're trying our hardest," Rin said back. She was already out of breath.

The others were fending off the orcs and goblins. They had all caught on to what they were trying to do. They would not let the humans have their master back so easily.

From the birds nest, Ley was shooting balls of Dark energy at the Orcs. It was keeping them a bit distracted which made taking them out easier. The Grand Chases combined power made it simpler, but there was something strange about these goblins. They seemed to be getting more energy with every hit, whereas the Grand Chase was losing theirs.

"What's happening?!" Ley yelled from above. Even though she was safe in the birds nest and wasn't being hit, every time one of her energy balls hit an orc or goblin she felt weaker and weaker.

Below, everyone else was feeling the same affect.

* * *

For the past five minutes, Sonia had done nothing but smile like a complete idiot as she floated in the middle of the water. She couldn't believe she hadn't drowned; she had been so sure these were going to be her last minutes on Earth. Err, well…not Earth…but Aernas.

Giggling, Sonia dove underwater and tested how long she could hold her breath. She had completely forgotten about the situation at hand over her excitement, but was brought back to reality when she heard the firing of a dozen cannons all together at one shot.

Swimming back to the top, Sonia watched as the ship that belonged to the Grand Chase was obliterated. It had been a small ship, and twelve cannons were more than enough to sink the poor thing.

Sonia had a sinking feeling, which was quite ironic considering the fact that she was floating. Were the others alright? She hadn't seen what had happened to them and she was worried they might've gone down with the ship.

But that was very unlikely. They were trained fighters, were they not? Of course they would be alright.

Sonia made her way as fast as she could through the water. It was hard for an inexperienced swimmer to make her way through all of that water and she was tiring pretty easily, but she didn't give up. By the time she had reached the base of the opposing ship, Sonia was completely out of breath and needed a couple of seconds to get her energy back.

Above her, Sonia could hear the shouts of the Grand Chase.

"Oh thank goodness," she told herself. Somewhere along her swim she had begun to doubt if the others were still alright or not.

As she looked up, Sonia saw a very strange sight. She saw the body of Knight Master tied around the waist by a very flimsy rope. Also, connected to that rope, by several different wires were about 5 different weights. Her body was slowly inching upwards, but it wasn't making much progress. Sonia had a bad feeling that Knight Master wasn't just hanging there for fun.

Not knowing what else to do, Sonia looked for a way up. She spotted a sort of ladder attached to the side of the ship. It was a rope ladder and if she swung hard enough to her left, Sonia was sure she could grab onto the rope Knight Master was hanging off of and cut her free of the weights, making it easier to pull her up afterwards.

Putting her plan into action, Sonia quickly, but carefully, climbed halfway up the rope ladder. Hopefully anyone that was pulling Knight Master wouldn't be too surprised by the added weight.

Sonia imagined she was on a swing, trying to make things less frightening for herself. It was hard to get the ladder moving at first, but once it got going things became easier. It wasn't the sturdiest ladder so when Sonia jumped off and grabbed for the rope Knight Master was suspended from, it came off with her and fell into the sea.

Realizing that she had only had one chance to do what she had just done, and that she had done it right, Sonia smiled to herself as she tried cutting through the rope with her fingers. Dumb idea; that would never work. Sonia sighed. _What now…_she wondered.

* * *

There was a small surprised gasp from the members of the Grand Chase, that were working on pulling Knight Master up, as more weight was added.

"What was that?!" Arme asked, clearly surprised and worried about what happening to Knight Master below.

Asin, who had joined the girls, for he had noticed how difficult they were finding the task, let go of the rope at the very end and went over to check.

He was surprised at what he saw. "It's the Earth girl, Sonia."

Arme gasped, also letting go of the rope. The others lost their grip on it slightly as well, losing about 4 inches.

"Now see what you've done!" Elesis growled.

Arme gave her an apologetic look, then continued leaning over the edge of the ship. Asin had been telling the truth. "SONIAAAA!"

Below, Sonia was surprised to hear her name being called. She looked up to see Arme smiling and waving at her. Sonia tried to smile back but her grip was slipping. She needed to cut these weights off fast and get to the top.

"I NEED A KNIFE!" Sonia shouted back.

"Huh? What did she say?" Asin asked, who hadn't heard her shouts properly due to all the fighting in the background.

"A knife…" Arme said.

Elesis looked up from the rope which was also beginning to slip through her hands. "Here," she said. "Pass her my sword." She grabbed for the sword at her waist, then threw it at Arme who almost had her face sliced off.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Sorry," Elesis smirked.

Elesis' sword was much heavier than Arme's staff so she had a bit of trouble carrying it with ease. As she hoisted it over the side of the ship, Sonia was surprised to see a spinning sword hurling towards her. Afraid that she was going to be sliced into two, Sonia closed her eyes and held out her hand. Luckily enough, Arme had had good enough aim and the hilt had landed right in her hand.

This wasn't exactly what Sonia had meant when she asked for a knife. First of all it was 4 times bigger than what she had expected, but it would have to do. The blade cut through the wires connecting the weights to Knight Master smoothly, lightening the weight by tons. Soon Sonia felt herself quickly being hoisted up towards the deck of the ship. She was helped over by a purpled haired boy, who was careful not to touch any of Sonia's bare skin, which she remembered to be Asin.

"Thank you," she said.

"You made it," he noted.

Sonia smiled, but it soon disappeared. She had overheard the conversation that had been going on behind her.

It was Elesis. Her voice was weak and pained. "She's dead," she was saying. "Knight Master…is dead."


	15. Chapter 15

Hello everybody!

So I noticed that I only posted half of chapter fourteen. I'm such an idiot -.-

The other half had been in a completely different document labeled chapter 15…

And instead of going back and updating the whooole chapter, I'm just going to make the second half of chapter 14, chapter 15. So, here it is! The second half of chapter 14, which is actually chapter 15. Since its still chapter 14 I didn't give it a title (It's not because im lazy or anything…psh)

Hehe, hope that didn't confuse you –insert evil laughter here-

Also, I now have a ship in my story and I am no expert on boats so there's not going to be any precise terminology. I typed this up while on a very boring road trip and I didn't have any internet to do any research and my father wouldn't let me use his so im sorry if it annoys you that I use the terms back of the ship…or front of the ship…or middle of the ship…or anything of the ship…a lot.

Anyways if you've been following this mess of a story for this long THANK YOU SO MUCH u v u

Oh and also, sorry for the long intro, I usually don't do these so when I do I get kind of talkative :3

* * *

Chapter Fifteen: [Actually you know what; you can make up the name for this chapter. I don't have to be the one thinking of chapter names all the time now do I?]

Sonia watched as Elesis knelt beside Knight Master. She was really dead…How could she have not noticed it before.

Sonia shook the image of Knight Masters's blank stare out of her head.

Elesis stood up. She was clearly hurt the most by Knight Masters's death. "Come on," she said. "No use mourning here. That's not what Knight Master would want us to do."

The rest nodded in agreement and they all joined in on the battle. Sonia stood there, alone, not knowing what to do. She couldn't look away from Knight Masters's body.

Somehow, she felt this was all her fault.

They were going to Silver Land because of her. Knight Master would never have come here on her own if it wasn't for her. The Grand Chase would still have their leader. Elesis wouldn't be so hurt and they wouldn't be facing this new problem.

It was all her fault. _HER _fault.

Angered with her own thoughts, Sonia stormed into the battle. She had to get revenge…she had to find the leader. And she had to kill him. Her own thoughts scared her, but she didn't care. If she was really going to do this she had to think like the others. If killing didn't bother them, why should it bother her?

All around her the battling commenced. She saw Sieghart, her so-called "guide", injured and bleeding, but she didn't care. A part of her thought that he deserved that for being such an ass. She turned around as a goblin flung itself at her. She hit it with a spinning kick, sending it across the deck towards Jin.

_Jin. _She ran towards him just as he threw a couple of goblins overboard.

"Jin!"

He turned around surprised to see Sonia on the ship, whom he had thought had been left at the beach.

Standing in front of him, Sonia felt very awkward dressed so similarly. She gave him a weak smile and he smiled back, but it immediately disappeared and the next thing she knew Jin was hurling towards her. She thought he was going to hit her so she put her arms up for protection, but instead he ran past her, engaging in combat with an orc that had tried sneaking up behind her.

It didn't take him long to dispose of it, but he seemed oddly tired afterwards. "They're using some sort of curse," he told her. "Every time we hit them, they take our energy and transfer it in themselves."

Sonia didn't understand a thing, but she nodded, not knowing what to say. She needed to find their leader. If she took him down maybe the rest of the goblins would be as clueless as they were without Knight Master.

As she was scanning the deck she saw something strange. A shadow…except there was no body to accompany it. Sonia remembered something she had seen at her last encounter with the goblins. When she had first seen them at the beach they had appeared out of nowhere. They had been invisible…they could cloak themselves. And that's exactly what the Orc Lord was doing right now.

"I think I know where their leader is," she told Jin.

"What?" he was confused. He directed his sight to where Sonia was looking, but he didn't see anything.

"Come on," she said. Sonia had a plan. It included a bit of destruction though. Sonia hadn't been there when Lire had said not to destroy too much of the ship, so she wasn't aware of any boundaries she might've had.

She ran all the way to where Elesis and Arme were still with Knight Master. The others had gone to join the fight. They had untangled Knight Master from the rope, and that rope was exactly what Sonia grabbed for now.

"Why do you need that?" Jin asked.

Sonia smiled. "You'll see."

She wasn't completely sure if her plan would work, but she had a pretty good feeling about it. Or maybe that was just all the adrenaline shooting through her veins blinding her common sense.

She turned towards Arme. "You're a magician right?"

Arme nodded.

"Can you…I don't know…charm…this rope… so that it won't break no matter how hard anyone or anything tries?" Sonia asked.

Arme got up and grabbed the rope from Sonia. "Yes I can, but I don't understand why you need that done."

Sonia smiled. "Please, can you do it?"

Arme sighed. She didn't want Sonia to think she didn't trust her or anything so she agreed to do it. Sonia watched as Arme took out her wand and said some sort of spell then handed the rope to Sonia.

"There, it's charmed," she smiled.

Sonia eagerly took the rope. "Thank you thank you thank you!" she sang, as she excitedly skipped away. It was finally time!

* * *

The way this ship was built was a lot different than how the other one had been constructed. For starters, instead of the birds nest being in the center, it was near the back of the ship. And that was where the Orc Lord was, as he watched his troops fight off the humans.

Sonia was planning on giving him a taste of his own medicine, but she needed Jin's help since she didn't really know how to cause a lot of damage with her adaption abilities yet. And she needed a lot of damage for her plan to work.

Sonia turned towards Jin and whispered her plan in his ear. He was a bit unsure of it at first, especially because he couldn't see the Orc Lord himself, but when Sonia starred him down with a look so deadly it probably would've killed him if he looked any longer, he agreed.

Just like that Sonia's glare turned into a smile and she and Jin put her plan into action.

The Orc Lord hadn't noticed that he had been discovered. In fact he hadn't even noticed that the humans had managed to get their Leader back, and he defiantly didn't notice the human girl that was sneaking up behind him.

Sonia had tied the rope into a lasso and was planning on capturing the Orc Lord in it. She was feeling very confident as she swung the rope over her head and threw it at the Orc Lord, but it all disappeared when she missed…

_Uh oh…_Sonia thought.

She watched the Orc Lord appear before her. Now, even Jin could see him. In fact, everyone could see him and Sonia standing face to face.

Angered, he came rushing towards her. Sonia thought about what to do and she realized there was only one thing she _could_ do. She sprinted towards the Orc Lord meeting him head on, rope in hand. When she was close enough, Sonia jumped up, flipping in the air. She dropped the lasso over the Orc Lord's head then pulled at the excess rope to tighten it around him.

He couldn't understand why it was so tight and why he couldn't break through it. The Orc Lord could break through anything! Struggling, he watched as Sonia ran towards the mast of the bird's nest and tied the rope tightly around it.

She smiled at the Orc Lord, then moved out of the way to let Jin complete the task. He gathered his chi into his fist of ten thousand hells and hurled it at the mast. It broke off right away, but instead of falling out of the ship…it was falling in!

_How come nothing could ever go perfectly as planned?_ Sonia thought.

Everything on the ship froze. The fighting stopped, the Orc Lord stopped struggling. They had all heard the horrible moaning of the ship as the mast lost its hold.

Ley, who had been in the birds nest quickly flew out and landed as far away from the mast as she could, near Arme.

Arme was bewildered. "How did that happen…?"

"The Earth girl did it," Ley replied simply. She had begun to interest her.

* * *

Sonia stood at the bottom of the mast waiting for it to come close enough. She had watched Jin when he had gathered his Chi and was trying to do the same. If she could just collect enough energy…

Jin was getting worried. He watched as Sonia stood under the mast, clearly not planning on moving. "Sonia what are you doing!? GET OUT OF THERE!"

But Sonia didn't move. She could feel energy rushing into her, just like it had when she had first encountered the goblins, except this time there was much more. Soon her vision blurred and all she could see was the mast coming towards her. There was a deep heat inside her and she could feel it making its way towards the surface.

The others watched from where there were. They were expecting to see Sonia crushed by the mast, but what they witnessed was something completely different. Just as the mast was about to hit the deck, Sonia exploded. Well, not literally. She exploded with energy. It was the power of a dozen hurricanes coming together that hit the mast and sent it flying in the opposite direction.

Frightened, the Orc Lord flailed his arms, trying to grab anything he could, and he just so happened to grab Sonia.

They hit the water, the wave created by it making the ship lurch dangerously to the right which also caused Knight Master's body to slide and fall into the water. Elesis noticed and was about to jump into the water after it when Rin held her back.

"There's no use now," she said. "She's gone."

Sonia tried to wriggle free of the Orc Lord's grip, but he was too strong and most of her energy had been drained.

Panicking and not knowing what else to do, Sonia kicked the Orc Lord where she was sure it would hurt. He instantly let go of her.

Relieved Sonia swum to the surface, taking in long deep breathes. Calming herself down, Sonia looked over at the floating ship which now belonged to the Grand Chase. She smiled. Everything was going to be alright.

It took her a couple of minutes to swim back to the ship, but when she did she was help up by Jin. Soaking wet, she stood on the deck, shivering in the cold.

Last time Sonia had adapted and used an immense amount of energy she had passed out, but this time her head just hurt a little bit.

The ship was a mess. There were broken pieces of wood everywhere.

The remaining goblins and orcs, not understanding what had just happened, also jumped overboard, having complete fate in their master who had just done the exact same. They landed in the water to a nasty surprise. Apparently, none of them could swim.

"Idiot's," Dio said. "Don't they have brains of their own?" Then he walked over to Sonia and turned to face her. "Lost your book, hey?"

Sonia gasped. The book! She had left it on the other ship!

"You're such an idiot!"

Sonia turned around to see an infuriated Sieghart making his way towards her.

_Ugh_, Sonia thought. _Why does he have such a horrible personality? _"I didn't do anything wrong this time," Sonia said in her defense.

"No, but you did something incredibly crazy, you stupid little brat!"

Sonia raised her eyebrows and blinked twice. "What? Excuse me, but I just saved your ass from a really ugly thingamabobber!"

"It was the Orc Lord…"Sieghart said, taken aback by Sonia's childish comment.

"Thingamabobber…"

"Orc Lord!"

"Thingamabobber!"

"ALRIGHT THAT'S ENOUGH!" Lire marched over to where Sieghart and Sonia were having their pointless argument. "We have absolutely no time for this! We are more than half a day behind schedule so let's get moving people."

"What about Knight Master?" Elesis asked. She was staring into the depths of the ocean with a saddened look on her face.

"We can't fish her body out now…it's too late," Lire replied.

Elesis sighed. She knew Lire was right, but it just felt so wrong. That damned Orc Lord. This was his fault! All of his kind would pay…

Sonia watched as everyone around her began to clean up the ship. Suddenly, she began feeling colder and colder, as if her clothing was slowly thinning. Then she remembered something. "Wait!" she yelled, clearly panicked.

The others, sensing her panic, stayed alert, thinking that there might be more danger about.

"What is it?" Lire asked. She had an arrow mounted in her bow.

"MY CLOTHES! THEY'RE GONNA DISAPPEAR!"

Sonia heard laughter behind her. It belonged to Sieghart, but she decided to ignore it. She wouldn't let him have the satisfaction of knowing that it had bothered her.

Arme came running towards her. "I came prepared!" she smiled.

"Hey…are those mine?" Amy asked.

Arme hid the clothes behind her back. "What? No, of course not!" She quickly handed the clothes to Sonia, clearly feeling proud.

"Thanks," Sonia said.

"You're welcome, now come on! Go change before you're standing before us completely bare!"

* * *

The day continued with everyone cleaning the main deck of the ship. There had been a silent, but mutual, agreement between everyone that Lire could act "boss-like" but she wasn't actually "boss". No one was "boss" until they all agreed on a new leader together. That was going to be hard, considering the amount of ego some people housed.

As Sonia was throwing some rubbish overboard, Mari approached her. She was holding a light blue book trimmed with black. She held it out for Sonia.

"What's this?" Sonia asked.

"A journal," Mari replied. "It'll help you adjust. It helped me when I first joined them."

Sonia took the journal from Mari. She'd never had a diary before, but it wouldn't hurt to try. "Thanks, Mari."

The blue hair girl smiled, then walked away.

She ended up locking gazes with Dio. She felt awkward holding any kind of book in front of him now. She wondered what had been in that book and she wondered why Dio didn't want her to see it.

Looking away, Sonia set the journal to one side.

The ship was looking a lot better now even with one of the masts missing. Ronan, who surprisingly actually knew how to steer a ship, was doing just that right now. You wouldn't have been able to tell there had been a battle on that ship just a couple of hours ago.

Earlier that day everyone had gone below deck to see what the ship was really like. There was a kitchen, 6 bedrooms, a storage room, and a room full of wooden tables and chairs. There wasn't much too it. It wasn't a luxurious ship, but it was better than what they had before.

Since there was so many of them and so little bedrooms, everybody had to pick roommates. Mari, Lime and Rin shared one room. Arme, Elesis, Lire shared another. Sonia ended up sharing a room with Ley and Amy. As for the boys, Ronan, Ryan and Jin shared one room. Sieghart, Dio and Zero shared another, much to all of their annoyances, and Rufus, Lass and Asin shared the last.

Sonia looked out at sea once more before deciding to go below deck and disappear into her room. She was tired, very tired. That day had really taken a lot out of her, and she needed to rest.


	16. Chapter 16: The Voyage

Chapter Sixteen: The Voyage

That night she had a horrible nightmare. She was back on earth, and they were at it again. Her sisters were locked away in their rooms, her mother sitting on the couch, tears streaking her face. And her father? Well, he was there too. Doing what he did best.

Breaking the hearts of his family.

Sonia sat in her room on her bed. It wasn't a big room. There was one bunk bed and one normal bed. Amy and she had had a little duel over who would get the top bunk and luckily Sonia had won. She loved the top bunk. Ley had taken the extra bed.

The journal Mari had given her was on her lap. She didn't want to think about the dream she had had, so she hadn't written it down. She'd finally escaped all of that and now it was returning to haunt her in her dreams. So far all she had written was: I'm on a boat.

Very insightful.

Sighing, Sonia set the journal to one side and exited the bedroom. She hadn't left her room yet, except once; for breakfast.

There wasn't much to do on the ship so she had just locked herself in her room, but that too soon became very boring.

Expecting everyone to be above deck, that's where Sonia headed. Maybe she could strike up a conversation with someone.

It was windy, but it felt good against Sonia's skin. She hadn't realized how much she had missed the fresh air.

Not everyone was above deck. In fact there was barely anybody there. There was Ronan, but he was in charge of sailing the ship so he didn't really have much of a choice. There was also Mari, silently reading a book while sitting on top of a barrel and finally there was Rin.

Rin wasn't really someone Sonia had spent a lot of time with yet. In fact, Sonia hadn't spent much time with anyone. She would have to make the effort to become more familiar with everyone.

_Oh, why does there have to be so many of them, _Sonia thought.

She quietly walked over to Rin who seemed to be admiring the view. It seemed she had heard Sonia coming, because once she was in earshot, Rin said "We might not make it there in time."

Sonia stood beside her and also looked out at sea. "If we don't, what happens then?"

"I guess we'll have to buy you an unlimited supply of clothing," Rin laughed.

She was getting a bit tired of the clothing jokes, but Sonia smiled anyway. This girl seemed very light spirited, but right now Sonia needed a serious answer. "You guys won't throw me away?" she asked.

Rin looked surprised. "Throw you away? Why would we do that?"

"I don't know," Sonia said, looking down at her hands.

Rin noticed how sullen Sonia seemed. Smiling, she said, "You know, not everyone dislikes you as much as it might seem. It's just because you're new, but once you get to know everyone, you'll see that they're actually caring people….more or less."

Sonia doubted that, but she'd just have to take Rin's word for it. Besides, there was no use sulking around. She'd rather have some fun. "So, where's everyone else?"

* * *

According to Rin, everyone else was below…training. Whatever that meant; Sonia didn't know.

They were all in that room filled with chairs and tables and it was actually fairly loud.

No one noticed when Sonia walked in. Either that or no one cared.

She couldn't understand what was going on. There was just so much happening all at once.

Amy was the first to notice her. "Hey! You finally left the room!" she smiled.

Sonia nodded. "What's going on?"

"Practicing our skills, eating, sitting around, the works," Amy replied.

Sonia slowly nodded, still not fully understanding the point of the entire ruckus.

"Come on," Amy said, pulling Sonia by the arm to a table. "I found a new player!" Amy told the others.

_New player? _Sonia wondered.

A red haired girl, who was standing on a table, looked down at Sonia. She had been in the middle of giving some sort of speech to Arme and Lire. "Great!"

_What's happening_…Sonia thought.

"So, it's simple," Elesis continued. "Just don't get tagged. If you do, you're out."

_Tag? They're playing tag?_

She could play tag just fine. In fact, she was really good at it. She used to play tag with the neighborhood kids all the time!

"This is how Elesis is dealing with Knight Master's death," Amy whispered to her.

"I know how to play tag!" Sonia said.

Elesis looked towards Sonia. "Good! So I don't have to explain the rules to you," she smiled. "Just remember…I'M IT."

Arme put her hand up. She looked a little frightened. "Actually, I think you should explain to Sonia what exactly your versi-"

But she was cut off by Elesis who shot her with a cold stare.

Sonia wondered what Arme had wanted to say.

"Alright, let's begin! I'll count to ten and then I'll come after you," Elesis said. She stepped off the table with a mischievous grin. Everyone else looked a little worried, but no one said anything.

Elesis smiled at Sonia one last time and said "Be careful."

Confused, Sonia didn't understand why Elesis would say such a thing. It was just tag wasn't it, but Sonia didn't have much time to think about that because Elesis started counting.

She watched the other girls run away much faster than you would expect anyone to run for a game of tag.

"5…6…7…"

Sonia, realizing she had still been glued to one spot, ran to the opposite side of the ship. And she would have made it there too, if a sword thrown into the pillar beside her hadn't stopped her in her tracks.

Too afraid to see what was behind her, Sonia slowly turned back around. What she saw was Elesis, laughing her head off at how shocked Sonia was.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

"This is how we play tag," Amy told her. "It's a tradition; we've played this with all the new members."

Sonia starred at Elesis and Amy, with absolutely no idea how to react. She wanted to scream.

Elesis walked over to Sonia and pulled her sword out of the pillar. "Better get running," she told Sonia in a voice that was truly evil.

Amy giggled and ran away. Sonia couldn't see Arme and Lire anywhere and she didn't really know how to refuse Elesis.

"Keep running!" Lire yelled from somewhere. "This is also how we train!"

"What?! What are you training for?!" Sonia asked as she was forced to dodge another sword thrown by Elesis, but she got no reply and for the next hour Sonia was sent running and dodging knives around the ship.

* * *

Completely out of breath and after almost having her head sliced off numerous times, Sonia fell into a chair at the first table she saw. She tried putting her head down, but she didn't have enough energy so instead she ended up smacking her head hard against the surface.

"Ow…" Sonaia mumbled. _I can't believe that's what they call a friendly game of tag…_

Somewhere at the same table, someone was snickering.

Sonia tilted her head to the right and saw Zero, the boy with the talking sword, sitting on her left. "Why are you laughing at me?" she asked him. Somehow she had ended up sounding like she was crying.

Sonia sat up and rubbed her eyes. Good, no tears. That would've been embarrassing.

"That wasn't me, it was Grandark," Zero replied.

"Grandark?"

"My sword."

"You have a mean sword,"" Sonia pouted.

Zero grabbed Grandark off of his back and held it towards her. "Here, tell him that for me."

Sonia was surprised to see an eye open near the hilt of the sword. It starred at her for a while before saying, "Well, what is it?"

Sonia blinked. "Oh, right, well…umm…" She looked past the sword at Zero. "This feels weird," she told him.

"What's so weird about a talking sword?" Grandark asked. "Not too long ago you thought I was cool!"

Sonia directed her attention back to Grandark. "Very well," she said, "It's just that…you don't have a mouth…but you're talking. How is that not weird?!"

Grandark sighed. At least Sonia thought it was a sigh. "You Earth Humans are hopeless," he said.

_Ugh, there's that term again, _Sonia thought. She was getting annoyed with how everyone referred to her as an Earth Human. Yeah, that was what she was and she wouldn't have mind being called one either, but it was clear that they were using the term "Earth Human" as a put down. "I'm pretty sure im the only Earth human you've ever met," Sonia challenged.

"Fine," Grandark said. "YOU'RE hopeless."

Sonia raised an eyebrow and looked over at Zero. "I hope you're much kinder than you're sword here," she said to him.

"Ha! Kinder?" Grandark snorted. "Of course he is, but-"

Sonia cut him off. "Good, then I would rather speak with your master instead of you." Sonia saw a glint of anger in Grandark's one eye as she said that.

"He's not my master!" Grandark said.

Sonia wasn't impressed. "I'd rather speak with your master," she repeated.

Grandark would not be insulted like this. "Zero! Get me out of here. I'm not staying in the presence of someone so rude!"

Zero sheathed Grandark back where he belonged, but he didn't get up to leave.

"Some sword you got there," Sonia said to him.

"He's not so bad," Zero said.

"So…do I get a 'Grandark' of my own when I adapt to you?"

Zero sat up. He hadn't thought of that yet. "I don't know…"

"I hope it doesn't have the same attitude," Sonia said, clearly worried.

Zero was still thinking about what Sonia had previously said. "There's only one Eclipse," he mumbled to himself. "If there were two Grandarks…"

"Huh? What?" Sonia said. What was Zero talking about? "Why do you need Grandark to see an eclipse? Besides aren't their like a couple of eclipses every year? There isn't just one. There's a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse and…"

Zero looked up at Sonia who was rambling on about eclipses. He had no idea what she was talking about, but the amount of Eclipses she was mentioning scared him."

"What's wrong?" Sonia asked when she saw the expression on Zero's face. Well…half of his face.

"That's not what he meant by eclipse, dumbass!" Grandark shouted from Zero's back.

Sonia was surprised by the swords language. She got up and walked behind Zero to face the sword. "You are a potty mouth!" she accused Grandark.

"And you're not?" Grandark replied smugly.

"No, of course not!" Sonia defended herself.

"You two seem to be getting along just fine."

As if she wasn't already annoyed enough, Sonia turned around, recognizing the voice. "What do you want, Sieghart…"

He still seemed angry at Sonia, although she had no idea why anymore, but if he was going to treat her like that, she would treat him the exact same way.

"Absolutely nothing," he replied. "In fact I came here to tell you that Mari would like a word with you."

"Mari?"

"Yes."

* * *

She'd only been below deck for a couple of hours, but the weather had changed dramatically. There were storm clouds appearing above and one of them looked oddly like a funnel.

"You don't think there will be a hurricane, do you?" Sonia asked Mari.

"No," she replied.

Sonia didn't seem convinced.

Mari was still sitting on the same barrel she had been on the last time Sonia had seen her. And she was also reading the same book.

"What are you reading about?" Sonia inquired.

"You," Mari replied.

"Oh…well, why did you want to see me?" Sonia asked, getting a bit worried.

It's not me that wanted to see you, it was Dio. He asked me to tell someone that I needed to see you and when you came to me, I am to send you to him."

Sonia sighed. She knew exactly what this was going to be about. "So, where is he?"

* * *

Dio was sitting on the edge of the ship, which believe me, was a very dangerous thing to do, but he didn't seem frightened at all.

"You wanted to speak with me?" Sonia said.

"Yes. Sit down."

"Sit down? Where?"

"Right here," Dio said, pointing at the same edge he was sitting on.

"No! What if I fall off?!" Sonia argued.

"Just sit…"

Wanting to get it over with, Sonia did as she was told. She balanced on the edge of the ship, and when she looked down to see her legs dangling over the water, she got a bit dizzy.

"You want to talk about the book, don't you?" Sonia asked,

"It wasn't just a book," Dio said.

"Then what was it?" Sonia looked over at the magenta haired demon. He still scared her…a lot… and part of her wanted to run, but she was still very curious about the book.

"That doesn't matter, it's gone now," Dio said.

"Wasn't it important?" Sonia asked.

"It was important it stayed hidden, and I guess the bottom of the ocean is the perfect place."

"So, I don't get to know anything about it?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Because it doesn't matter."

"Because none of you will ever completely trust me."

There was silence for a moment. Dio didn't know what to say to that. It was true, he didn't completely trust her, but he had perfectly good reason not to. They barely knew her, but now that he thought about it, the others barely knew anything about him.

When Dio didn't say anything Sonia hopped back onto the deck of the ship. Safe at last. "I don't know why you needed to talk to me," she said.

"You haven't let me finish yet."

"Then finish."

"I need you to promise me something."

_Promise? _Sonia thought. Now things were getting interesting.

"You can't tell anyone about that book. Don't even mention it. Ever. Especially not to the other demons."

Sonia raised her eyebrow. "Why not?"

Dio turned around, a little angered. "Don't tell anyone," he repeated.

Sonia shrugged. "Fine, whatever. I promise."

Dio turned back to face the water.

Sonia stood there for a while before leaving. Thinking back to what had just happened, Sonia realized the importance of it. Dio had a secret. And even if she didn't know what exactly that secret was, she still knew he had a secret. Maybe she could use this information to her advantage someday.

Smiling to herself, Sonia disappeared below deck. She was getting hungry.

* * *

The ships kitchen was a medium sized room. There wasn't a separate room made especially for eating, like there had been in the tent Sonia had destroyed, and she could tell that it would be very packed that evening.

Right now though, there was only on other person in the kitchen; Lime.

"I thought Rin was the one that did the cooking," Sonia said to her.

Lime shook her head. "No, we all do it, once in a while. Even the boys. Although their cooking is never too good," she laughed. "What about you? Do you cook?"

"Cook?" Sonia repeated. "No, not really."

"Everyone needs to know how to cook!" Lime said.

Sonia shrugged. "I've never had to cook before."

Lime smiled. "Then come one! I'll teach you!"

"Wha?!" Sonia screamed, as she was pulled into the kitchen by Lime.

And for the rest of the afternoon, Sonia was in the kitchen learning how to cook. She wasn't very good at it. In fact during her first attempt Sonia caused a slight explosion that worried almost everyone on the ship. She also messed up on the ingredients a bit, for salt and sugar looked very alike. But, with a lot of hard work, and almost NO determination, Sonia somehow ended up cooking an edible meal. With the help of Lime of course.

* * *

"Dig in!" Lime told everyone sitting around the table. "Sonia contributed to it, so its extra special!"

Sonia hid her face with her hands. "Nooo, don't tell them that!" she pleaded.

"Is that why it tastes so strange?" Sieghart asked.

Sonia looked up at him on the verge of tears. "Strange?!"

Sieghart nodded, chewing on a piece of the pie Lime had helped Sonia prepare. "It doesn't taste bad…just…strange."

Not knowing what to say, Sonia looked down at the table. _Great. Now everyone thinks I'm a horrible cook,_ Sonia thought.

"Why are you eating dessert first?!" Lime asked, taking the plate of apple pie away from Sieghart.

"Give it back!" he roared.

The whole dinner was fruit and vegetable oriented since that's all Rin was able to find on their walk to the docks. And also because whenever they spotted an animal, Ryan would let no one get near it. Sonia wondered how Rin had managed to save the food during the battle with the Orc Lord.

"It doesn't taste weird at all!" Arme said, also taking a bite of the pie.

Sonia looked up, eyes widened. Yes! Someone liked it!

"No! Arme?! You too?! No! No dessert before dinner!" Lime scolded.

Suddenly, the door to the kitchen flew open. Sonia had thought everyone had made it in time for dinner, but it seemed that Rufus had decided to be fashionably late.

"Rufus, you made it," Ryan said, who was sitting at the head of the table with Lire. No one had noticed it yet, but they were sharing a plate.

"I haven't come to eat," Rufus said. He pulled out a piece of parchment from an inner pocket of his jacket and held it up. "I have something very important that we all need to discuss."

"Is that the document from the Lich's robe?" Dio asked, recognizing the piece of paper.

Rufus nodded. "Yeah, and there's something in it that I think we should all see." He made his way to the head of the table and asked Lire and Ryan to move aside. They did as they were told.

He unrolled the parchment and set it on the table. Sonia had been sitting to Ryan and Lire's right, so she could see it very clearly. There was writing all over it, but she didn't recognize it. It wasn't English.

"It's in the writing of the gods," Rufus announced. "We can't read it, and I don't know why the Lich would have something like this. I suspect him of being a courier of some sort."

"But why would a god need to communicate with the undead?" Lire inquired.

Rufus shrugged. "That's just it. I don't think it _was _for the Lich. But, we need to find a way to read this."

"Um…well," Mari cleared her throat. "We're going to Silver Land and it did used to be a part of Xiena, so maybe someone there would know how to decipher it."

"Perhaps," Rufus said, but he highly doubted it. It had been a very long time since Xiena and Silver Land had been one.

"Do you think the adaptologist will be able to read it?" Elesis asked.

"I doubt it," Arme replied.

Sighing, Rufus rolled the parchment back up and put it back in his pocket.

"We'll worry about this later," he said.

"Right," Lire agreed. "Right now, we have to focus on finding the adaptologist"

"But we've already exceeded our time limit," Ronan said.

_That's right, _Sonia thought. They'd had 48 hours to reach the adaptologist, but it had taken 48 hours for them to just reach Silver Land. "Did she say where she was going?" Sonia asked.

"No, but she lives in the Whispering Woods," Arme said.

"Well, right now, that's the only lead we have," Jin said, "so that's where we'll begin."

* * *

"Asin, what are you doing…we're trying to get some sleep…"

Asin stopped his training, clearly unpleased that someone had interrupted him. "Why don't you get some training in too, Lass?" he suggested.

"Because," Rufus said, as he sat up in his bed, "We are trying to get some sleep, so unless you want your head blown off I suggest you do that same."

Asin glanced at Rufus' eyeteeth, lying not far from where he was. Afraid that Rufus might be serious, Asin sat back on his bed.

"Thank you," Lass said.

Asin sighed. He hadn't been doing anything wrong. He was just trying to be the best he could be. Besides, he still had some energy left in him. "I'm not tired yet."

"You will be tomorrow, when we go on our little adaptologist hunt, UNLESS you get some sleep," Rufus said, while lying on his back with his eyes closed.

"You seem very excited," Asin said sarcastically.

"Well, if it's not exciting, it's interesting," Lass said.

Suddenly, they heard raging footsteps outside their door. They recognized Amy's giggling, but it wasn't her that urgently opened the door to their room and locked it behind her; it was Sonia.

She stood in the room facing the door, trying to catch her breath, completely unaware of the three other presences behind her.

Sighing, Sonia turned around, only to see that she wasn't alone. Her eyes widened when she recognized the three boys in the room. "I-I'm sorry!" she said, as she turned to leave, but stopped as she heard Amy's giggling and footsteps still rampaging the hall, looking for her.

She turned around with an apologetic look.

Surveying the room, she saw Lass on the top bunk and Asin on the bottom. Then she saw Rufus off in the corner on a bed of his own.

"I didn't know this was your room," she said to all three of them.

Rufus had opened his eyes, annoyed at another disturbance. "Shouldn't you be asleep…" he said.

Sonia yawned. "Yes, I should be sleeping, but Amy wouldn't go to sleep, so Ley kicked her out and Amy unwillingly dragged me out with her and Ley won't let me back in until I lose Amy, but that's a lot easier said than done," she explained.

"She's still out there," Lass informed.

Sonia sighed. "I know, but…I guess I should get going." She turned back around to open the door, but before she could, someone began knocking at the door.

"Soniaaaaaa, I know you're in there! Naughty, naughty, disappearing into a room full of boys," Amy snickered.

Sonia gasped. She turned back around, clearly scared. Her eyes frantically searched for a spot to hide, and she found one; underneath Rufus' bed.

"I can't believe she fits under there," Rufus muttered to himself.

Asin went to the door and opened it. Amy was surprised that Sonia hadn't been the one letting her in.

"Where is she?" she asked, stepping into the room.

Asin shrugged. So did Lass. Rufus had already lain back down with his eyes closed.

From across the room, there was a muffled "Ow". Sonia had hit her head against the bottom of Rufus' bed.

Amy ran towards the sound and pulled Sonia out from under the bed.

"No! Stop! Amy…PLEASE!" Sonia begged as Amy dragged her out of the room. "Why are you so strong?!" she cried.

Amy just giggled as she continued to pull Sonia out of the room.

* * *

Instead of going back to their own room, Amy had dragged Sonia to Elesis', Arme's, and Lire's room. To her surprise Lime, Rin and Mari was also there.  
The only one absent was Ley.  
"She didn't come?" Arme asked.  
"I forgot to tell her, haha," Amy laughed nervously. "Hang on, I'll go get her!" she said as she ran out of the room.  
"What's going on," Sonia asked.  
"SLEEPOVER!" Arme cheered.  
"What?" Sonia asked. "But there are almost ten of us? How are we all going to sleep in here?"  
"The more the merrier," Rin said. "Don't worry, we'll make room."  
Sonia looked over at Elesis who sat on her bed with her arms crossed.  
"I never agreed to this," she said.  
Sonia gave her a small smile. "Might as well make the best of it," she said.  
The rest of the girls were sprawled across the floor with their pillows and blankets. Sonia wondered if that's where they planned on sleeping.  
Seconds later, Amy barged in with an annoyed Ley. "Seriously? A sleepover...you have got to be kidding."  
"I know how you feel," Elesis said to her.  
The night continued with Amy trying to lead various sleepover-like activities. Mari had told a scary story, but Arme and Lime got a little too scared so she had to stop. They also had a pillow fight, but that too didn't work out, thanks to Elesis and Ley who became a little too aggressive. Now they were all sitting on the floor around a pretend fire munching on snacks Rin had prepared, and gossiping.  
For Sonia, it was the perfect way to learn more about the other girls.  
Amy was the most excited. "So, Lire, tell us! Why have you been around Ryan so much lately?"  
Sonia watched as Lire turned beet red. She remembered when one of her friends teased her about a little crush she had had (not that you could actually call it much of a crush). She had been in grade three and the boy had been her best friend, but one day he transferred to a different school, which led to a major pre-mature heartbreak.  
Sonia giggled to herself. She had been a strange child.  
Lire was still trying to find the words to answer Amy's question. "Well," she said," We're kind of going out..."  
Amy gasped. "WHAT! And you're telling us this now?! The only one from all of us that's in a relationship is telling us this now?!"  
"Shhh, don't be so loud," Lire begged.  
"You're dating Ryan?!" Elesis asked. She couldn't believe it. Even she hadn't built up the nerve to even tell Ronan that she...sorta...liked him.  
"Who confessed to whom?" Rin inquired.  
Lire blushed even more. "I told him..."  
Amy gasped again. "WHAT?!" She was jumping up and down, fuelled with excitement. "I can't believe it! We have a couple in the Grand Chase! TELL...ME...EVERYTHING." she demanded.  
"Oh leave her alone," Ley said," she's probably too embarrassed."  
"But-but-but," Amy stuttered.  
Sonia looked over at Mari who was sitting beside her. She looked uninterested with her poker face, or maybe that was always the expression on her face. Sonia couldn't remember.  
"Well, we all know who's next!" Amy squealed, poking at Elesis' arm.  
She glared at Amy. "Stop or I _will_ hack you into pieces."  
Amy didn't stop.  
"Oh yeah? Well what about you?" Elesis challenged. "You've been crushing on Jin ever since you were part of the Silver Knights together and you still haven't told him!"  
Amy froze. She looked at the ground, not knowing what to say.  
Sonia's head shot up. Amy liked Jin? She remembered how Amy had jumped at her the first time Sonia had met any of them. Jin had been standing close to her and Amy had run in between them. Did Jin like Amy back?  
Realizing something, Sonia's eyes widened. Had Amy's feelings for Jin really been the reason she had been discovered as an adaptor in the first place?

But even if that was so, why did it bother her so much?

* * *

~_oh my gosh  
_

_This was such a long chapter. My longest so far, so I'm sorry about that. I hadn't actually planned on it being this long since nothing too important even took place. It was just the characters hanging around, but I thought we needed a more slow paced chapter because of all the hectic ones we've had in the past._

Anyway, thank you for reading :)


	17. Chapter 17: Captured

_I just noticed something…and im very upset about it!_  
_I have been spelling Aernas wrong, THIS WHOLE TIME. OTL_

___How come…how come nobody told me?! QnQ I demand an answer!_

* * *

Chapter Seventeen: Captured

Sonia woke up that morning squished in between Elesis and Mari. She rubbed her eyes as she stood up from the tangle of girls on the floor. When had they even fallen asleep? She noticed that Ley, Arme and Lire were missing. They must have woken up earlier.

Sonia exited the room and made her way to the only bathroom on the ship! Luckily it wasn't occupied at that moment.

The ship had absolutely no plumbing or electricity, they even had had to use fire to cook last night's meal, so the bathroom was very old fashioned. There was a small mirror on the wall above a bucket full of fresh water, and then off to one side was a towel (that they all had to share).

Sonia bent to wash her face and then dried it off on the towel. She realized it had been a while since she had last taken a bath.

_I WILL find a fully functional bathroom!_ she promised herself.

She was still a bit tired as she walked past the bedrooms and the kitchen, and finally the room filled to the brim with furniture until she got to the hatch. It was wide open and the cold wind blowing through it woke her up completely.

As she climbed up the stairs, she was expecting to see a vast ocean and the sun in the distance, but she didn't see any of that. Instead she saw trees; lots and lots of trees.

They had arrived.

Ronan had sailed through the night, knowing how urgent it was for them to reach Silver Land as fast as possible. They'd arrived sometime in the middle of the night, and once Ronan had safely docked the ship near the edge of the woods, he had passed out right there. In fact, Arme was trying to wake him up.

"Ronan, you're going to be so stiff if you don't wake up right now!" she said, as she shook him by the shoulders.

"Let him sleep," Lire said. "The others are still sleeping as well."

"The other _girls," _Jin said. "We boys are all awake, ON TIME. Even though we could hear you girls up late at night, screaming and yelling. What were you doing anyway?"

"SLEEPOVERRR" Arme sang.

"Sleepover?" Rufus snorted. "That's lame."

"Good morning," Sonia said, as she approached the others.

"Good morning," they all replied in unison, or so she thought.

So today was the day they would search for the adaptologist. She was excited and anxious and she couldn't wait to hear what the adaptologist might say about her!

The other girls were slowly beginning to come up from below. The last one was Elesis.

"Where's breakfast?" she demanded.

"No breakfast," Ryan told her. "Sieghart ate the last bit of fruit we had."

"What?!" she roared.

Sieghart had been standing near the edge of the ship, oblivious to everything that was happening behind him. He wasn't used to waking up early in the morning. In fact he wasn't used to waking up in the mornings at all. And as he stood there he wondered what to do with so much time, until he was hit on the side of his head by the flat of a sword, and knocked into the water.

When he rose back to the surface, he spat out a ribbon of water from his mouth. "Im gonna get you for this, Red!" he yelled as he began climbing the side of the ship. His strength made the ship lurch a bit to the left.

Elesis grinned, accepting the challenge, and soon a vicious battle was taking place.

"They're destroying the ship," Sonia said, as she watched Elesis fling Sieghart across the deck into one of the masts.

"Eh, we don't really need it anymore," Lire said.

Meanwhile, the commotion had woken Ronan up. "Elesis! Be careful…" he said as Sieghart grabbed her by the hair and slammed her against the deck, creating cracks.

A week ago Sonia would've thought this was crazy, but right now she watched the scene with bored interest.

"Oh, we're all awake?" Rin asked as she looked around the deck, rubbing her eyes.

"Yes, and starving," Lire told her.

"Well, then what are we waiting for?" Jin piped up. Let's go!"

* * *

It took a while to break Elesis and Sieghart apart, but once they did, it hadn't taken long for them to get lost…

"Anyone know where we are?" Lime asked nervously.

"The Whispering Woods," Asin answered, smugly.

That wasn't the answer she'd been expecting.

"It doesn't matter where we are, as long as we find the adaptologist," Ronan said.

"We should have brought a map…" Lass muttered.

They had all been blindly walking through the woods for who knew how long. But they'd managed to find some berries along the way and snacked on those. No one wanted to admit it, but they hadn't come prepared at all. Something like this never would've happened if Knight Master had still been with them…

"Why do they call it the Whispering Woods?" Sonia asked.

"Because…," Sieghart said, as he snuck up behind her.

Sonia gasped. She hadn't been expecting that.

"…when you're not looking," he continued, "the tree's try to molest you, and if they're unsuccessful, they enter your dreams and make you whisper dirty things in your sleep."

Sonia's eyes widened, shocked at what she had just heard.

Sieghart snickered and walked away.

"That's not why it's called the Whispering Woods…" Ryan said, clearly disturbed by Sieghart's words. "If you listen really closely, it sounds like the plants and trees are whispering to each other."

Sonia blocked all other noises and tried to hear any whispering, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't. Soon she gave up, bored with the challenge. She looked over at Amy. Last night, she had promised the other girls she would try to at least get somewhere with Jin and right now she was doing just that.

They were walking beside each other, closer than what you would call "just friends". They were laughing at something and seemed to be deep in a conversation. Elesis was not too far behind them, listening to the conversation. By her expressions, you could tell that she thought Amy was taking things too slow.

Sonia remembered how Jin had once said he knew how it felt, when everything changes so suddenly; the day Sieghart had introduced her to everyone. Should she ask him about that right now?

No…what was she thinking? Why did she want to break their conversation up? What was bothering her so much?

There was a little voice, in the back of her mind that kept whispering the answers to all of her questions, but she wouldn't listen to it. It was wrong. It was lying. There was no way what the voice was saying was true.

Sonia shook her head, angry at herself for thinking the way she was. She needed something to distract herself with…

* * *

"What's wrong with you, Dio! Why would you want to stay here?"

_Not this again. _"I have better things to do than go back," he said.

"My father always thought there was something suspicious about you Burning Canyons…what are you hiding?"

"Hiding?" Dio smirked. "Nothing you should worry about."

"Damn it; don't make this more work than it needs to be! I can't go back until you promise my father your family's allegiance."

"Then I guess you'll never be going back."

"Dio!"

"Do we have to do this here?!"

Ley sighed. What was wrong with this hot head? She pushed past him to get to the others. "I'll figure out what you're secret is," she sneered at him.

Elesis glared at Ryan who, for the past hour, had been talking nonstop about the different types of plants and trees in the forest. When she had asked him to shut up, Ryan had simply said that he was enriching her mind, which did nothing but anger her even more.

_How does Lire even put up with this?! _Elesis thought.

Why did everybody have to be such a snooze fest? First there was Amy, who was doing nothing more than beating around the bush with Jin, and now Ryan?! Why was she destined to be stuck with such a boring bunch…

Leaving her thoughts behind, Elesis looked up at Ryan one last time, who was still rambling on. She grabbed him by a collar and pressed him against a tree trunk. "I said shut it twerp!"

"Twerp?!" Ryan repeated. "I'm taller than you…"

"Why are you still speaking?!"

"Stop playing around," Sieghart yawned. "We've already wasted enough time."

"Playing?!" Ryan squeaked. "She's choking me!"

"Elesis, please let Ryan go!" Lire begged.

Elesis turned to see Lire running up behind her, water in her eyes.

_Sheesh, she's crying? _

"Fine, whatever," she said, as she let go of Ryan and let him drop to the ground with a hard thud. He quickly got up, and brushed away Lire's tears. She had always been so sensitive.

"This is pointless," Ley said. "We've been walking for hours andhaven't seen a thing."

"I'm sure this so-called adaptologist has already left," Dio said.

"Hey!" Arme yelled. "She's not so called!"

"Calm down, Arme," Lire told her. "I'm sure if we just keep looking-"

"We've been looking for ages," Asin interrupted.

Their 'expedition' so far hadn't had much luck. Rufus and Zero had gone ahead to do a bit of scouting, but had returned with no news. It really did seem pointless.

"Hey…guys?"

"What is it Lass…"Rufus asked, bored.

"Where's Sonia?"

* * *

A bit before the bickering had started, Sonia had begun to hear the whispers. At first they were quite faint, but soon they'd begun to get louder and louder. She hadn't even noticed the fact that she had been following them, until she came to a large opening. It was a swamp. There was moss everywhere, and murky water. A large tree trunk fell across the expanse. There was also a HORRIBLE smell.

Sonia took a step forward, almost slipping on a rock. Yuck, it was slimy too.

The whispering had died down, as if it didn't want her to go any further, except, there was nothing here. Getting a bit worried about the others and realizing she should get back to them a.s.a.p, she decided to turn around, but not before she caught a glimpse of something moving on the other side of the swamp.

There was giggling, but not cute giggling…witch-like giggling.

Sonia was about to run, afraid of what might be making the giggling noises, but then the source appeared before her. It was a fairy! Well, from what she could tell…

A REALLY BIG FAIRY.

"I always thought faeries were small," Sonia said, as she examined the creature in front of her. She had purple skin with red eyes and no pupils. Her red hair was tied in braids, but there were also two buns on either side of her head. She wore an eggplant purple dress with red patterning and at her back; a pair of majestic wings.

She was beautiful, but something about her didn't feel right to Sonia.

"You're not Jin," the fairy said, disappointed.

"Jin?" Sonia asked. "Why are you looking for him?"

"Oh so you know him?" The fairy laughed, but it sounded more like a cackle.

_Ew_, Sonia thought, _she might LOOK beautiful but there's nothing else beautiful about her…_

"I felt his presence the minute he set foot once again on Silver Land," she continued. "I thought you were him when I called for you."

_Called for me? Is that what the whispering was? _"How do you confuse a female for a male?" Sonia asked, mocking the fairy.

"You're energies are similar," she explained.

_It must be because I adapted to him_, Sonia realized. "Well, I'll pass on any message for you to him."

The fairy laughed again. "I'm no fool," she said, before disappearing.

"That's not fair," Sonia said, annoyed that the fairy had just left like that.

Sighing, she turned around once again. She needed to get back to the others before they realized she was gone.

As she began running in the direction she had come from. Sonia remembered the slimy rock she'd slipped on before. She abruptly stopped and looked down. Yup, it was right there, less than a foot away. She'd stopped just in time.

"Not today rock," she smiled as she stepped over it, but when she looked back up, her smile disappeared and before she even knew what was happening, Sonia was hit on the head, with the exact rock she had just stepped over.

* * *

There was a deep repetitive throbbing on the left side of her head. She tried to lift her hand to see what was wrong, but she couldn't, and when she opened her eyes everything was pitch black. At first she had thought she had gone blind, but then she realized she was blindfolded.

Tied up and blindfolded.

But why?

Then it all came rushing back.

Someone had hit her.

"Mmm!" Sonia said when she tried to speak, for there was also cloth shoved into her mouth and then tied behind her head.

"Hey I think the younger one woke up!"

"Really? Haha, let's have a look!"

Whose voices are those?

She heard footsteps walking towards her. They were heavy, and whoever they belonged to had a bad habit of dragging their feet.

Suddenly, her blindfold was pulled off.

She was in a dimly lit room. There was one lamp hanging from the ceiling that could house 2 light bulbs, but the other one was shattered; its remnants spread across the floor.

The lamp didn't light up much of the room, so all she could see was a table at which three dirty looking men sat at, playing cards. She could also see that the room was a mess! It looked like someone had rummaged the place, looking for something.

Sonia looked up at the man who had taken her blindfold off. He looked to be in his late 20s and the smile on his face revealed his rotting teeth.

"Look at this," he snickered, caressing Sonia's face. "She's afraid.

Sonia jerked her face away from the man's hands. That's when she saw the older woman tied up beside her.

She wasn't blindfolded like Sonia had been, but there was cloth tied around her mouth to prevent her from talking. Her hands were tied with ropes secured somewhere above, just like Sonia and both of their feet had been chained together, immobilizing them.

The woman was unconscious.

Sonia narrowed her eyes and glared at the man. She tried to wriggle free, but he grabbed her and she couldn't squirm out of his grip.

"We got a feisty one," he informed the others.

"Has that old hag woken up yet?" one of the other men at the table asked.

Sonia directed her attention towards them. They looked the same age as the other. The one that had spoken had curly orange hair and was smoking a cigar. The other two looked very much alike. Sonia realized they were twins. Both had the same short brown hair and both wore the same clothing.

Sonia kicked her legs, making clanging noises with the chains.

"Tell her to keep it down," one of the twins growled.

The man with the rotting teeth raised his hand and slapped her across the face; there was a sickening crack.

Sonia didn't move. It hurt, but she wouldn't show it.

"Hey, she didn't even cry," the man said, slapping her once more.

Sonia bit on the cloth in her mouth, trying to push back the tears.

"Tamf tm uuf!"

"What did she say?" the orange head asked.

Rotting teeth man untied the cloth around her mouth, standing a little too close for Sonia's comfort.

She spat once the cloth was off, trying to get rid of the taste. "Who are you?!" Sonia demanded.

"You don't get to ask the questions," the man told her.

Sonia scowled. _What gentlemen_, she thought, sarcastically. "Why did you capture me?" she tried again.

"Why?" one of the twins snorted, "because we have endless luck!" he laughed.

_What in the world are they talking about?_

The man with the rotting teeth joined in. "Yes!" he agreed. "First I get that stupid bounty hunter to kill that old man, then I successfully find his wife and now we've caught ourselves a pretty little toy," he said, eyeing Sonia.

"Bounty Hunter?" Sonia asked.

The man smiled at her. "Some bounty hunter, it was just a kid!"

_Is he talking about Rufus? _Sonia thought.

"I'm sure he wouldn't just kill an old man," Sonia replied.

"He was a money hungry boy, im sure he would."

"Nope."

"Yes."

"Nope."

"Shut up, before I violate you right here girly."

Sonia stopped. The thought of being violated by these people made her want to puke.

She sighed. There was nothing she could do to get out of this mess right now. She'd just have to wait…and watch.

* * *

How long had she been here? Hour, days, months?! It didn't matter; she was going to go crazy!

Where were the others? She had expected a rescue by now…

What if they could never find her?

Sonia fell into a deep depression, thinking of all the things that would happen to her if she wasn't found soon, but she was snapped back to reality when she heard rustling from her right.

The old lady was awakening!

Their capturers had taken the cloth out of her mouth, thinking that she would never regain consciousness. Sonia watched as the lady opened her eyes. She scanned the room, confused, as if she couldn't remember where she was. Then, when she spotted the destruction and the 4 men lying on the floor, her confusion was replaced by fear.

"Shh!" Sonia commanded, when she saw that the woman was about to scream. "You don't want to wake them up. They're horrible."

The open looked at her with wide eyes. "What's happened?" she asked.

Sonia glanced over at the four sleeping bodies, making sure they hadn't heard a thing. "Im not too sure; when I got here you were already tied up."

"My home…" the woman sobbed. "What have they done? Where is my son?!"

"Son?" Sonia asked.

"Yes! He lives here with me; a mere 8 year old. He's adopted, but I love him like my own."

Ah, that made more sense. It had seemed odd to her for an old woman to have such a young son. Was that even possible… "Well, there's no eight year old with them," Sonia assured her. "Perhaps he ran to safety."

"Perhaps," the woman breathed, but where could he have got too?

Sonia watched as the woman consoled herself. She seemed even more frightened than Sonia. Her deep blue eyes were wide open and her breathing fast. Her gray hair was in a messy bun, which told Sonia she'd been here for a couple of days. "Don't worry," Sonia told her. "I'll get us out of here."

"How?!" the woman inquired.

"Err, well, not me exactly," Sonia admitted. "My friends."

This did nothing to calm the old lady's nerves. What could a couple of children do? She closed her eyes to prevent any tears from falling. How could something like this happen?

She squeezed her eyes tighter, begging herself not to cry, but even with all the effort, one tear drop made its way through and fell onto the floor.

"Stephan…" she whispered.

* * *

"Good job everyone. You lost her."

"WE lost her, Rufus," Sieghart spat at him. _Sheesh, why does this girl always have to cause so much trouble, _he thought.

The moon was up. They'd spent the entire day searching for Sonia, but just like their adaptologist hunt, they hadn't found a thing.

"Please stop bickering," Lire begged. "We have to focus on finding her!"

"How long had she even been gone?" Rin asked.

Ley shrugged. "Who knows." She was getting a little bored.

"What if she gets hurt?!" Amy gasped.

"Then we better find her," Elesis said.

"You don't think she ran away do you?" Lime asked, worried that they might have driven Sonia away.

"Why would she do that…" Rufus said.

"Well, Sieghart has been quite cold towards her lately," Ronan suggested.

Sieghart narrowed his eyes and starred at Ronan. "She wouldn't run away because of that." But in his mind, he wasn't so sure.

Ahead of the rest of the group, Asin and Lass had done some more scouting. They hadn't expected to find anything, since they hadn't had much luck previously, but now, the little cabin they were both starring at proved otherwise.

Asin turned his body in the direction of the others and cupped his hands around his mouth, getting ready to yell.

"Hey…guys! Take a look at this...!"


	18. Chapter 18: Syrelia

Chapter Eighteen: Syrelia

"What's that?"

"A cabin."

"The adaptologists?"

"No idea."

"Do we knock on the door?"

"I guess so."

"Idiots…why would you do that?"

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

"Sneak in."

Rufus quietly made his way along the edge of the trees. He had sensed something was wrong. There was a considerable amount of damage to the house and just walking up to the cabin didn't feel right to him.

He had told the others to stay behind. They couldn't all sneak in; that would be way too obvious.

_Now, how can I get in_, he wondered, as he circled the cabin.

He looked up. The cabin had a chimney. Rufus sighed. Great, he was going to get all dirty, but there was no other way.

The others watched from the bushes as they watched Rufus climb up to the chimney. They were going to give him 15 minutes and if he didn't come out, they would go in after him.

"You sure we should let him go alone?" Arme asked, worried that something might happen to him.

"He'll be fine," Lass assured her.

Rufus silently fell through the chimney. There was no fire or wood as a matter of fact, so his landing was soundless.

Where he was standing, it was completely dark. No one would be able to see him, but he could see the others; the four men on the floor, snoring, oblivious to everything, but that wasn't what surprised him. What surprised him was the two females tied up on the other side of the room, and one of them was the Earth Girl!

"Sonia?" he whispered.

She looked up at the sound of her name. She scanned the darkness, but couldn't see anyone. The 4 men were still sleeping and so was the woman. So, who had said her name?

Her question was answered when Rufus stepped into the light.

"Rufus…"

"What happened to you," he asked, eyeing the men on the floor.

"They kidnapped me!"

Rufus walked towards her. "What are these marks?" he said, raising his hand to touch Sonia's face.

"Don't!" she whispered, fiercely. "I'll adapt to you!"

"Right…let's get you out of here." Rufus reached up and began unknotting the ropes. They were well fastened, and it took him a while to undo them, but he finally got Sonia out of the mess. There was just one problem; the chains.

"What do you think you're doing..?"

Sonia looked behind Rufus, shocked to see that the others had woken up.

Rufus on the other hand gave a slight smile before slowly turning around to face the owner of the voice he so easily recognized.

Sonia watched as the eyes of the man with the rotting teeth widened. "You?!" he gasped.

"Me," Rufus smirked.

* * *

Rufus had only been in for 6 minutes when they heard 3 rapid gunshots.

"Let's go!" Sieghart commanded. He and the others ran across the expanse. "Surround it!"

Arme, Lire, Ley, Ryan, Lass, Ronan, and Zero positioned themselves around the perimeter of the cabin. The rest made their way to the entrance. The door was locked, but Jin had no trouble kicking it down.

Inside of the cabin, it was dark, except for a circle of light that illuminated one side of the cabin, and what they saw made them all stop in their tracks.

3 dead bodies and a pool of blood lay scattered on the ground, the air had even begun to get that metallic smell they were all so used too, and then Rufus; gun pointing at the face of an older man, and Sonia; shackled in chains alongside a woman.

Sonia looked up to see the others standing in the doorway. There was Jin and Sieghart and Elesis and Amy and Rin…they were all there! All of them! She felt tears of happiness fill up her eyes. Had she really been that afraid?

"What is this?!" Elesis demanded.

Rufus held his free hand up to stop the others from coming in any further. "Wait."

The man glanced back at his 3 dead companions, and then the teenagers at the door. Man was he in trouble now.

"Aeron…"

"How do you know my name?" he asked Rufus.

"A pretty little waitress told me," he smirked.

"W-what do you want?" Aeron was beginning to shake.

"My money."

"I already paid you!"

"No! My money for sending me on this wild goose chase," Rufus demanded.

"I-I don't have any money…"

Rufus took a step forward. His finger was on the trigger and it was already pressed down halfway.

"Wait! Wait…" Aeron begged as he got down on his knees. "Please…don't kill me."

Rufus smiled his sadistic smile. "This lady…she's the old man's wife, isn't she..."

Aeron nodded.

"He told me everything," Rufus continued. "Even how you're associated with the Infected."

Aeron's eyes widened. "What? No…I would never."

"Stop lying!" Rufus yelled.

Sonia cringed. Why was Rufus killing them? They weren't monsters, like the goblins. They were human! _But he's not, _a voice inside her head told her.

The old lady had awoken and was watching the scene, too terrified to say anything. She'd never seen anything like this, just like Sonia, and it was proving too much for her. She covered her face with her hands. No…she couldn't witness this.

"F-fine," Aeron admitted.

"What do you know?" Rufus asked. His voice was low and Sonia could tell it was taking everything he had to keep from pulling the trigger.

"They'll kill me if I tell you!" Aeron pleaded.

"I'll kill you if you don't."

Aeron sighed. "If I tell you…promise you won't end my life!"

Rufus starred at the man at his feet. He was pathetic. "I promise."

Aeron seemed satisfied. "I-I don't know all of the details," Aeron stuttered. "I'm just a little part of t-their plan."

"Who's plan?"

"I-I don't know…but…I can tell you what they plan on doing."

"Continue."

"E-earth. They want Earth. They're l-looking for something, or rather, they want to get r-rid of some…thing…"

Rufus narrowed his eyes. "You know more. What's your part?"

"I…I was the one that corrupted the different species with dark magic. They use some sort of machine. The orcs…the harpies, any animal." Aeron looked up to meet Rufus' gaze, but quickly looked away when he saw all of the blood lust. "I'm not the only one! There's more, one for each continent, a- a corrupter."

That was all he knew.

"Get up," Rufus commanded.

Aeron stood up.

Sonia sensed what he was about to do.

"Don't kill him!"

"Why not…"

"Listen to the girl!" Aeron said.

"He doesn't deserve to die!" Sonia said.

Rufus snorted. "You're too merciful. This scum almost had me kill an innocent old man. What if tomorrow he sends a less educated bounty hunter to do the same?"

"Everyone deserves a second chance."

"I'm sure he's had more than enough chances."

"Rufus, please don't kill him…"

"I've told you this before, there's no point feeling more than you need too…"

"Rufus, spare her eyes this," Rin said from the doorway.

"No. She needs to get used to this."

"YOU PROMISED!" Sonia screamed, tears streaming down her face.

Rufus smirked. "Promises are meant to be broken," he said, pulling the trigger.

* * *

They had set up camp outside of the cabin. All four of the men were dead and Sonia and the old woman were finally unshackled. Dio had used his rake hand to break the chains. Sonia had never noticed it before.

Now they were all sitting around a fire, including the old woman, silently eating some more fruit that Rin had found for them. It was awkward; for Sonia wouldn't answer to any of them.

"The marks on your face," Sieghart said. "What did they do to you?"

Sonia didn't answer.

"Sonia please answer us," Lire said. "If they did anything wrong to you, you can tell us, we won't judge."

_Great, they're misinterpreting my silence, _Sonia thought.

Sonia looked up at the others. How were they not affected by that? How could they all be ok with Rufus killing people like that…?

"They did nothing," Sonia said. "They hit me a couple of times that all, that's where the marks are from. They'll go away."

"And you wanted him to live," Rufus snorted.

"I'm not like you," she said.

"And what am I like?" he asked her.

"A monster."

Lire sensed the tension growing. "Please, don't say things like that Sonia. He's not a monster; this is what we have to do."

"No Lire," Rufus said. "I think it's about time we let the earth girl voice her opinion." He turned towards Sonia. "So you think I'm a monster," he said, walking towards her, eyeteeth in hand.

He was trying to scare her, Sonia realized. "Yeah, I do," she said, standing up.

He pointed his gun at her just like he had at Aeron. "I can do the same thing to you that I did to him."

"Rufus please stop," Lire begged.

"I'm just teaching her a lesson."

"I dare you too," Sonia scowled.

"You're crossing the line Rufus," Sieghart said.

He ignored all of them. "You're weak," he said. "Dumb, childish, and weak. Do you even know what he would've done to you? He kidnapped you, he abused you, yet you still show him mercy. People like you die an early death. People like you-"

"Shut up!" Sonia grabbed Rufus' gun out of his hand and threw it away. "What about you? Without those guns aren't you the same?! Weak!"

Anger flared in Rufus' eyes. He grabbed Sonia and threw her against a tree. "No. I'm not."

Sonia looked up at him, tears in her eyes. He was horrible, so horrible.

"Rufus…stop."

He glanced back to see Lire pointing an arrow at him. He let go. This was dumb anyway…

Sonia watched his back as he walked back to the fire. Who did he think he was? Angered, she followed him. As she did, she passed Jin and lightly brushed her hand against his bare shoulder. He looked up at see the red mark on her arm begin to glow and flaring topaz eyes. Rufus still hadn't turned around and when she got close enough she got ready to throw a punch, but it was stopped midway, by a hand she recognized.

Dio's Rake Hand.

She looked up at him as Rufus glanced back. "Don't be silly," he said.

But Sonia wasn't really listening to him. Instead she fell to the ground, unable to take the pain. It wasn't like anything she had ever felt before. On all fours, Sonia spat blood from her mouth. Why was there blood? Her eyes widened, afraid of what was happening to her. She coughed once again and lay on her back, looking up at the sky. She was about to pass out, but before she did she caught a glimpse of Dio's face looking down at her.

There was no expression to show how surprised he was. Instead he just starred as Sonia's eyes slowly began to close; for they weren't topaz anymore. They were a deep magenta, just like his.

* * *

"We have to work on the cabin…" Sieghart said, still half asleep. Two days in a row…waking up this early was not good for him.

"Mhmm!" Arme smiled, handing him a saw.

He growled, but took the hammer from Arme anyway.

"I can't thank you kids enough! You're such angels!" the old lady said, smiling sad at the youth working on her cabin. Although her cabin was hers again, they still hadn't been able to find her son, and she was getting very worried.

Ley smiled. "Doesn't it sound odd to call a demon an angel?" she asked Zero, who was nearby.

He nodded.

"No problem Grams!" Elesis called down from the roof of the cabin. She turned around to face Sieghart who was on the roof with her, hiding from Arme, and trying to get some more rest. "Hey…since you're so old, and still single, why not ask the old lady out on a date?" she snickered.

Sieghart chucked his gladius at Elesis, barely missing. "Shut up!"

"Jeez, "Elesis rolled her eyes. "No need to be such a drama queen, it's not like you have anybody else in mind…"

"You don't know that," Sieghart shot back.

"I don't need to," Elesis laughed. "Who's gonna ever fall for an idiot like you!"

Lire could hear the two fighting from below. She climbed the ladder up to the roof to see what was going on.

Sieghart had Elesis in a head lock and was threatening to choke her. He let go immediately when he saw Lire. "Oh hey, Lire what's up?" he asked innocently.

"Oh nothing, just thought I'd hang out up here," she smiled.

Sieghart growled then made his way back to the spot he had decided to nap on.

Below, Lass and Rufus were having a serious conversation.

"You shouldn't have treated her like that last night."

"I didn't mean any harm," Rufus sighed. "I'm helping her."

"Helping her?!"

"Yeah, she needs to be stronger, don't you think? She could barely handle a couple of deaths."

"Well…yes, but you're means are not correct."

"Doesn't matter how it's done, as long as it works."

Lass sighed. This guy really did make him mad. He had no consideration for others feelings what so ever. "Well, I'm gonna go help out."

"Has anyone seen a blue journal with black trimming?" Mari asked everyone.

"Why? Is it your diary?" Amy teased.

"No, it's Sonia's. I forgot where I put it."

"Oh, I think I saw something like that inside the cabin," Rin told her.

"Thank you."

Mari left the others to go search for the journal. She had already completed her share of the work, which hadn't been hard at all with her machinery.

"Hey, where's Jin?" Amy asked no one in particular.

"Inside as well, helping clear out the mess," Rin told her. "You should go help out too."

Amy gasped, and then quickly ran inside.

"CANT YOU GUYS KEEP IT DOWN?! IM TRYING TO REST!"

Lime, who believed in equality, quickly made her way up the ladder and onto the roof. It wasn't fair that everyone else had to work and Sieghart was just lounging around.

Sieghart spotted the little girl with the HUGE gavel make her way towards him. "Whoa, whoa! What are you-!?" But he didn't get to finish, for Lime had flung him off of the roof and into some nearby bush.

"Good Job!" Elesis cheered.

Lime turned back and smiled, glad that someone appreciated her work.

"Stop it stop it stop it!" Ryan cried.

"We have to cut down trees to get wood for the cabin, Ryan," Ronan explained. "Try to understand."

"NO!" Ryan sobbed. "I WANT NO PART OF THIS! WHERE'S LIRE!"

Elesis, who could hear Ryan's crying, rolled her eyes. "LIRE, YOU'RE BOYFRIEND IS A CRYBABY!" she yelled.

"Elesis…Shh!" Lire said, but it was too late. Everyone had heard. Including Ronan and Ryan.

"You're Lire's boyfriend?" Ronan asked him.

Ryan stopped his sobbing. He didn't know what to say.

A smile spread across Ronan's face. "Way t' go!" he said, high fiving Ryan.

Lire, who was extremely sensitive in matters like these ran inside of the cabin, afraid of what everyone would say.

"Oh calm down," Asin told her," we all knew it."

Arme surveyed the others as they worked. She was the supervisor and was proud of it. Although, no one had really named her supervisor. She'd just kind of taken up the job. Everyone was being so silly, she smiled to herself. This is how it should always be.

* * *

_She was in paradise. There was no worries here; no trouble. She was free to do whatever she wanted without consequences. Here she didn't have to worry about others; here she didn't have to deal with others. She was alone; and she was happy. But soon it all began to change. Her paradise was consumed by darkness and being alone wasn't so great anymore, but it was all she knew, and because that was all she knew, she couldn't do anything to save her paradise. It was gone, and she could never have it back. But that got her thinking…had it ever belonged to her in the first place?_

Sonia opened her eyes, a tear making its way down the side of her face. Sheesh, why was she crying? Stupid dream. Then she realized that she was covered with clothing. Had the others thought she was dead? She rubbed the tear away with her right hand and stood up. She was in the woods. There was a damaged cabin nearby, and she could see the others working on repairing it.

"Good Morning guys," she sang. She had decided in the 2 minutes she had been awake so far, that she would try to forget everything that had happened yesterday and cool down. These people were her only chance of survival in a world like this and she didn't want to get on their bad side.

"It's afternoon!" she heard Sieghart's voice from somewhere.

_Man he's annoying._

"Oh Sonia you're awake, hey could you pass me the-whoa…"

Sonia looked up at Elesis who was on a ladder patching something on the roof. "What's wrong?"

"Go look in a mirror," Elesis told her resuming her work.

Sonia scratched her head. "Huh…a-alright."

Sonia walked to the entrance of the cabin and entered. Most of the Grand Chase was inside, helping the old woman clean anything they could.

When they saw Sonia, Lime quickly ran to the old lady, who was bent over trying to pick up a piece of glass from the ground. "Umm, miss!"

"What is it dear- whoa!"

Lime had thrown a bag over the old woman's head.

"What are you-"

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to show you the progress outside!" she smiled, as she dragged the old woman out of the cabin. Once they were gone, the other's relaxed.

"What was that about?" Sonia asked.

"We didn't want her to see you adapt," Arme told her. "Thought we'd keep it a secret."

"Is that why I was covered with clothing outside…Wait…Adapt?" Sonia asked.

"YEAH, don't you remember?" Amy asked her.

Sonia shook her head. She quickly ran to a mirror on the wall and froze when she saw her reflection. Her breath was coming out in short fast gasps. "What's wrong with me…" she asked.

"Wrong with you?" Dio asked, walking up behind her. "I think you look just fine."

Sonia looked at Dio's reflection in the mirror and then hers. They had the same horns, the same hand, the same ears. "M-my arm…" she stuttered.

"Do you like it?" Dio smiled.

Sonia turned around and looked at the others. "I'm scared."

"Does this mean she's a demon..?" Ley inquired.

"I-I don't know…" Arme said. What _did _this mean? Sonia was obviously not human at all at the moment, but she could always change back and become human again. But if she could change her species…than…which one is she truly? "If only we could find the adaptologist."

"Adaptologist?"

They all turned towards the sound of the voice. In the doorway stood the old woman; Lime was behind her with an apologetic look on her face. She hadn't been able to keep her away any longer.

Dio jumped in front of Sonia, and so did Amy and Mari, who were the closest, to hide her.

"Uh…yeah," Arme said. "Do you happen to know anyone named Syrelia?"

"Syrelia?" the old woman laughed. "Do I! Why you're looking at her!"


	19. Chapter 19: Information

Chapter 19: Information

"You? You're the adaptologist?!" Sonia gawked, barely believing what she was hearing. This woman, who she had spent hours tied up with, had been the adaptologist all along?!

Syrelia laughed. "And why is that such a surprise?"

Sonia blinked, stepping up from behind Dio, Amy and Mari and crossed the room to her. "Didn't you say you were leaving?"

"Oh, yes," Syrelia sighed. "I was going to go back to my husband, Stephan, with our adopted son, Seth, but those goons showed up and ruined all of my plans!"

"Seth? You have a son?" Amy asked.

Syrelia nodded. "He went missing right when they showed up."

"Don't worry," Lime assured her. "We'll help you find your son!"

"Oh, no no no," Syrelia declined, "you kids have done more than enough for me. I'm sure...I'm sure he's fine."

Sonia watched Syrelia as she, once again, tried to fight back her tears. She knew that felt. She'd done it numerous times before at home, and she knew it was hard. It was best if she changed the subject. "So...you know what I am?"

Syrelia shook her head. "Actually I had no idea until I saw you just now, but my, this is so very exciting! I didn't think your kind existed anymore!"

Sonia smiled. "And I didn't think my kind existed at all."

Syrelia scuffed along the floor over to a bookshelf at the very back. It wasn't very big, but it was packed to the brim with books and transcripts. "This is my collection," she told them. "Everything and anything I know about adaptology had been taken from these."

Arms ran up behind her, trying to look over her shoulder and get a glimpse. "So is adaptology a form of magic?" She asked, jumping up and down.

Syrelia turned around, holding a couple of volumes in her hand. "Perhaps," she said," but this is highly unorganized. How about I make some tea? And then, we can all sit down and talk."

* * *

Sonia didn't like how everyone was present. Her eyes surveyed the group sitting around the same fire they had been the night before, as Syrelia passed around the tea. Why...why must there be so many of them. This way, there were more people to judge her, more people to reject her, and more people that she would have to work hard to please. What if Syrelia revealed something that made the others suspicious and not trust her all over again?

Sonia sighed and closed her eyes. _Nobody said this was going to be easy_, she told herself.

"Here you go, dear," Syrelia smiled down at her and handed her a cup.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Sonia looked down at the light orange liquid circling in the cup. It smelled like peaches and let off an inviting warm steam. She put the edge of the cup to her lips and took a sip, expecting sweet liquid to enter her mouth. That's not what she tasted though. What she tasted was the bitterest tea she had ever had, in her entire life.

Sonia looked up to see the others. Their faces scrunched up in disgust.

"What in the world…is this?" Ley asked, handing the cup to Zero, who had been sitting beside her. "Get it away from me!"

Syrelia snickered. "It's my own special recipe; a mixture of herbs and spices all very good for your health. How do you think im in such good shape at an age like this? Now come on, drink it up!"

"Can we add some sugar?" Sonia asked, hopefully.

"Yes, please!" Amy joined in, who only liked to eat anything sweet to begin with.

"No!" Syrelia snapped. "That ruins the whole purpose of the tea. Now all of you please. DRINK IT. IT IS MY WAY OF SAYING THANKYOU!"

_Thank you…,_ Sonia thought. _It tastes more like you want to kill us…_

The others groaned as they forced the tea Syrelia had so "lovingly" made for them, down their throats.

"And now that you're all comfortable," Syrelia smiled. "Let's get started shall we?"

* * *

It was an endless conversation. Arme and surprisingly, Mari, were the ones asking the most questions. Sonia didn't even know what they were talking about anymore, and all she really wanted to do was sleep. She looked around at the others. Ley, who looked bored as ever, and beside her, Zero who Sonia guessed was paying attention since his head_ was_ turned in the direction of Syrelia. Beside them was Dio, who also seemed to be intrigued. Then there was Asin, who was playing with the grass beneath his feet. She saw Amy, who had a little compact mirror and was playing with the sunlight that reflected off of it, and Elesis, who was using her sword to slice through the taller strands of grass. Beside her was Sieghart, who had his eyes open, but she could swear he was sleeping. Then sitting very...very close to each other were Lire and Ryan who paid attention, and then had a little conversation of their own, then paid attention again.

Sonia looked towards Syrelia, Mari and Arme. They were still at it.

"So what exactly is an adaption?" Mari asked.

"When an adaptor adapts for the first time to a certain race, there will be excruciating pain. When adapting not only the outside changes but the inside changes as well. What you've told me is that this young lady," she said, referring to Sonia, "has adapted to this young lad," she said, referring to Dio. "He is a demon, so at the moment, so is she. That's the same for any other race. Whether it be human, or demon, or elf." Syrelia turned towards Sonia. "Did it hurt?" she asked, "When you adapted."

Sonia nodded.

"So he was your first demon." Syrelia grabbed Sonia's left arm and looked at the four marks. Three of them faded so that you could barely see them, and one of them bold and bright. "You've adapted to four people?"

Sonia nodded again.

"Who?"

Sonia said their names while pointing at them: "Amy, then Sieghart, then Jin…and now Dio." She felt her heart skip a beat when she pointed at Jin and wanted to hit herself for doing so.

"Did it hurt when you adapted to the other three as well?" Syrelia asked.

"Yes, except for Jin." There is was again, one more time; her heart skipped a beat when she said his name. _I will cut you up into little pieces if you don't stop that, _she threatened her heart.

Syrelia turned to the ones Sonia had mentioned. "Your races please."

"Human," Amy replied.

"Human," Jin said.

"Human," Sieghart yawned. "But immortal."

"Ah, that makes sense," Syrelia said to herself. She turned back to Sonia. "You see, "she said, "it didn't hurt when you adapted to Jin because you had already adapted to a human before, which was Amy."

"But Siegharts a human," Sonia said.

Syrelia nodded. "Yes, but an immortal human. He's different from the kind of human Amy and Jin are, so that is why you felt pain."

Sonia felt sick. Her insides changed, as well as her DNA, every time she adapted? That…was kinda freaky.

Syrelia continued her lecture. "Some of the traits of the people you adapt to will stay with you even when you are in your original form. For example: swimming. If someone you can adapt to can swim, so can you, even in your original form."

"An adaptor has no race or is a race of its own, as far as I can tell. An adaptor is everything and nothing at the same time. Think of it as freedom. Freedom to choose whatever species you would like to belong to."

Syrelia took a sip of her tea, and thought for a second. "Sonia?"

"Yeah..?"

"To adapt, you touch bare skin, am I correct?"

"Yeah…"

"Have you adapted to any of them more than once?"

"Jin…"

"How?"

"I touched him again…"

"Ah, so you don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"How to adapt at your will of course!" Syrelia smiled. "You don't have to keep touching the person after you have adapted to them. An adaption only needs to take place once, and then you can change into that form whenever you want. "

"How?" Sonia asked, getting a little interested.

"Begin with thinking of anything related to that adaption," Syrelia explained. "The person, where it happened, anything! With enough practice you'll be able to change into any form you've adapted to subconsciously, whenever you want."

"Practice?" Sonia asked. "I have to practice?"

"Of course, else you will never reach your true abilities. You need experience my dear. With experience your world opens up to so many more choices. With enough experience, an adaptor can choose when to adapt and when not to adapt to something new."

Sonia sighed. This was too much. How was she supposed to remember all of this? It was too much in one go. Arme had brought something else up, and Sonia took this as her chance to relax a bit. She diverted her attention to the people beside her. There was Lime who was paying attention to Syrelia, and then Lass, who was fiddling with his dagger. Rufus was off to one side, looking up at the sky, but Sonia could tell he was secretly listening. Even though she had told herself to forget about what had happened yesterday, she couldn't, and just looking at Rufus angered her now. Rin also seemed to be paying attention, but she was using her fan to cool herself down. Sonia hadn't even realized how hot it had gotten. Beside Rin sat Ronan, and then beside him, was Jin.

Sonia caught herself staring at him, and she didn't really like the fact that she had done so. What was wrong with her?! How could she even think like that when she knew that Amy…

"Sonia…"

Sonia quickly looked away, afraid that she had been caught. She looked to the side to see Arme, with her hands on her hips, giving her an accusing look. "Are you even paying attention?"

"Oh um," Sonia stuttered. "Yes, sorry, just got a bit…distracted."

Syrelia sighed. "An adaptor and that to with no interest in what she is? Dear, do you even realize what you are?"

Sonia yawned, clearly not impressed. "I don't want to be made a big deal. I haven't done anything, and even if I am an adaptor, these guys are pretty amazing themselves," Sonia said, resting her chin on her hand. "And no, I do not realize what I am."

"You are an adaptor; an ancient race that hasn't been known of for over thousands of years. A race known for their ability to warp the energy spectrum and its own DNA."

"Energy spectrum?" Sonia asked.

"You don't know what that is?" Arme asked.

Sonia shook her head.

"Well," she said," there's a certain amount of energy in the entire universe that will never change. When something dies, its energy disappears with it, but that is why new things are born. The plants, the animals, us, we all have a certain amount of energy that will not change. Not all the energy in the world is being used though, so that allows you to collect, or essentially, borrow energy from the world, but you have to return it. If you don't, it'll begin to consume you and that's technically what's happened to the Infected. They've taken to much energy, or I suppose been given too much energy, which they are unable to get rid of. We're also able to give our energy or take another's, but that doesn't happen very often."

Sonia blinked, having absolutely no understanding of what Arme had said, but nodded her head anyway. "So…I can manipulate this 'energy spectrum'?"

"Yes although I do not know the details of how it is done," Syrelia answered. "Most of what an adaptor is, its origins, and true purpose, are a mystery, and most likely will remain a mystery."

"So what you're saying," Sonia said," is that you don't know anything…"

"Great, we did this for no reason," Sieghart said.

"That is not true," Syrelia said, offended. "What about everything I've just told you?"

"Alright," Sonia said," than you don't know anything _useful_…"

Syrelia didn't know how to reply to that. What was wrong with this young girl? Her attitude was horrible.

Sonia didn't know why she was acting like that either. She was taking her anger out on Syrelia and that wasn't right. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean it like that…I just…expected something different…I guess…"

"Different? Like what…" Syrelia inquired.

Sonia gasped. "I would like to know how to get my clothes back."

"Excuse me?" Syrelia asked, taking a sip of her tea.

"My clothes," Sonia repeated, standing up and walking to the adaptologist. "Every time I adapt to something they disappear! And when I'm done adapting or whatever, they don't show back up on my body so I have to run and hide and...It's embarrassing..."

Syrelia tried to keep back a laugh. "What? You can't even do that?"

"W-what do you mean..?" Sonia asked, a little offended.

"Well that's only one of the basics and if you can't even do that, how do you expect to do any of the more advanced skills?" Syrelia asked.

Now, Sonia was _really_ offended. "Well that's why we came here! So you could teach me!" She explained.

Syrelia took another sip of her tea. "Yes yes, calm yourself."

Sonia narrowed her eyes and returned to her spot. _That_ was embarrassing.

"I don't see how you can't bring them back," Syrelia continued. "Are you really not so in touch with your true self?"

"My true self?" Sonia asked.

"Yes, you're original form. The form you return too after you've adapted. The form you are when you are not adapted."

"Uhhmmmm..."

"Honestly this shouldn't be a problem at all..." Syrelia said. "All you need to do is remember your true self when changing back."

"I...um.." Sonia stuttered.

"Very well, let's try this," Syrelia suggested. "Do you know your true self?"

Sonia looked around at the others, her eyes asking them if it was ok to reveal that she was from Earth, but none of them answered her.

"What _is_ her true form?" Siegehart asked. "You seem to know..."

"Well she's an adaptor, and that is her true form."

"...but that makes no sense," Arme argued. "An adaptor can adapt to any race, but doesn't their original form count as their true form?"

Syrelia shook her head. "Adaptors are a race of their own. Like I said, its unknown what the origin of adaptors is; they could very well be creations, but that information is something I do not have."

Sonia listened closely to what the adaptologist was saying. Arme was right. This made absolutely no sense! "But I'm...I'm from Earth..."

Syrelia looked up, a bit startled.

"No! No! She's just kidding!" Elesis said, grabbing Sonia by the wrist tightly. "Stop joking around Sonia, this is not the time," she said, through gritted teeth.

"What's the point of hiding it?" Sonia said with a shrug. "I'm from Earth," she repeated. "And I guess I got here through a portal. I thought this was all a dream, but it's not."

"Idiot!" Sieghart muttered.

To everyone's surprise, Mari was the one to speak. "If you turn her in," she threatened, "we will not forgive you."

Syrelia didn't move. She sat there wide-eyed, starring at Sonia. "No, don't worry, I will not turn you in, but there is something I would request you to do."

Sonia raised an eyebrow. "Request me to do? What do you mean?"

"Not too far from here, lie the ruins of the Silver Knights. It houses a structure known as the Wall of Truth which is home to the Three Sacred Documents. The Silver Knights have kept it hidden for generations and only certain people know about it. I would like you to go there."

"I've read of that myth," Arme said, "but I had no idea it was protected by the Silver Knights."

"Nor did I…" Jin said, confused. Why had he never been told of it?

"You will not find it as part of the ruins, but below, in an underground cavern," Syrelia told them.

"How do we know you are telling the truth?" Rufus spoke up.

Syrelia collected her books and turned in the direction of her cabin. "If you want to know more," she said, "you will do as I've instructed."


End file.
